Wilbur Smith

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Wilbur Addison Smith (born 9 January 1933) is a British novelist specialising in historical fiction about Southern Africa's four centuries, seen from both black and white families. With his first published book When the Lion Feeds, an accountant by education, he won a film contract.

He wanted to be a full-time writer, and he wrote three long chronicles of the South African experience, which later became best-sellers.

He also respects his publisher Charles Pick's advice to "write about what you know best," and his book includes a lot of detail about the local hunting and mining lifestyle, as well as the romance and conflict that goes along with it.

His 35 published books had more than 120 million copies in 2014, with 24 million in Italy.

Early life

Smith, his younger sister Adrienne, and Herbert James Smith were born in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), as well as his younger brother Adrienne, 1913 (née Lawrence, 1913 – 1913). He was named after aviator Wilbur Wright.

Herbert Herbert, a metal worker, started a sheet metal shop and later established a 25,000-acre (10,000 ha) cattle ranch on the banks of the Kafue River near Mazabuka by buying up a number of separate farms. Smith said, "My father was a tough guy." He was used to working with his hands and had a massively developed armour from cutting metal." He was a boxer, a hunter, and a man's man. I don't think he ever read a book in his life, including mine.

Smith was sick with cerebral malaria for ten days as a child but made a complete recovery. He spent the first years of his life on his parents' cattle ranch, which includes 12,000 acres (30,000 acres) of wood, hills, and savanna, with his younger brother. On the ranch, his companions were the sons of the ranch employees, and young black boys with the same passions and preoccupations as Smith. He and his companions rode through the woods, walking, hunting, and trapping birds and small mammals. His mother loved books, read to him every night, and later gave him books of hope and excitement, which piqued his interest in fiction; however, his father discouraged him from writing.

Smith attended Cordwalles Preparatory School in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). He continued to be a voracious reader and had the opportunity to work with an Englishman who made him his protégé while also discussing the books Smith had read this week. Unlike Smith's father and several others, the English master made it clear to Smith that being a bookworm was praiseworthy rather than something to be ashamed of, and he let Smith know that his writings showed a lot of promise. He coached Smith on how to create dramatic effects, to create characters, and how to keep a plot moving forward.

Smith attended Michaelhouse, a boarding school located in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. He felt he never "fitted in" with the people, aspirations, and interests of the other students at Michaelhouse, but he did begin a school newspaper for which he wrote the entire text, except for the sports pages. His weekly satirical column became mildly known and was widely distributed, as far afield as The Wykeham Collegiate and St Anne's.

Smith wanted to write about South Africa's social conditions, but his father's suggestion to "get a real job" led him to become a tax accountant (chartered accountant).

"My father was a colonialist, and I followed him until I was in my 20s and learned to think for myself," he said. "I didn't want to perpetuate injustices," Ian Smith said.

He studied at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa, and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce in 1954. He worked in the gold mines and on a fishing boat based out of Walvis Bay and whalers during the 1953-54 break. Since being worked on a fishing boat, he took a Christmas vacation job on a whaling factory ship, the next year thinks he was tough enough. He was in his four weeks. He joined Goodyear Tires and Rubber Co in Port Elizabeth, where he worked until 1958. Since selling their cattle, his parents had retired to Kloof near Durban, South Africa, just over a border. Smith's father was forced to return to work due to poor investments. H. J. Smith and Son Ltd, a sheet metal fabrication firm, established in Salisbury in collaboration with his son. However, the company ran into financial difficulties, causing Smith, who had been 25 and divorced, to take on a Salisbury tax assessor.

Personal life

Smith married Anne Rennie, a secretary, in a Presbyterian Church in Salisbury, Rhodesia, on July 5th, 1957. He was serving for his father. "We did well in the kitchen but not outside it," Smith said. "What have I gotten myself into on our honeymoon?" says the author. But I resigned myself to it." This marriage had two children, one, Shaun, was born on May 21, 1958, followed by a daughter, Christian. In 1962, the wedding took place.

Smith married Jewell Slabbart on August 28, 1964, after being introduced at a party in Salisbury. Following the introduction of Smith's first book (When the Lion Feeds, 1964), they had a son, Lawrence. "Everyone looked down on me, including her," he said in one interviewer. "We didn't know anything about mutual trust or working together toward a goal," says the woman, who believed I was pointless." This union also ended in divorce. "I didn't know her [his second wife] well on honeymoon."

Smith then met Danielle Thomas, a young divorcée who had been born in the same town and had read all of his books, and thought they were fantastic. They married in 1971. Later, Smith wrote, "She manipulated me." I was earning a lot of money and it was spent by the wheelbarrow load... she had intercepted letters from my children. They were all about them because she had a son from a previous marriage and wanted him to be the dauphin."

Smith dedicated his books to her until she died of brain cancer in 1999, after a six-year illness.

Smith said:

On January 18, 2000, he met his fourth wife, a Tadjik woman named Mokhiniso Rakhimova, in a WHSmith bookstore in London. In May 2000, the two fell in love and married in Cape Town. She was a law student at Moscow University and was younger than him by 39 years.

On their relationship, Smith said:

"It's true love at first sight" and now she has the world's best English tutor." Of course, people talk about the age gap, but I'll say, 'What's 39 years?' Sure, she's old enough to be my daughter, so what?"

When Smith married Danielle Thomas, he cut off contact with his son Shaun and daughter Christian. He was also estranged from his son Lawrence, who died. "My relationship with their mothers ended," the narrator said, "They went with their mothers and were imbued with their mothers' morale in life, and not my people any more." "They didn't work." They didn't act in a way that I liked. I'm a selfish individual. "I'm worried about my health and those who are really important to me." He adopted Danielle's son from a previous marriage, Dieter Schmidt, and his family became close. Smith and Shaun reconciled. He and Schmidt were involved in a litigation over assets in 2002, and they became estranged.

Smith:

Gladys Siqele, the Smiths' domestic servant who had been with Smith for 21 years, was killed by a hit-and-run driver while walking outside the Smith home in Bishopscourt, Cape Town, in July 1989. The Smiths awarded a R 10,000 reward for information about the driver. Jacobus Michael Charles, a 32-year-old police sergeant, confessed to the murder later in life.

During the time when the family was cattle raising, Smith's father owned a Tiger Moth. Smith followed in his footsteps in obtaining a private pilot's license in the mid-to-late 1960s, allowing him to fly all over Africa. However, after a bad experience, he gave up piloting in 1974. He lived in London, Bishopscourt in Cape Town, Switzerland, and Malta.

He owned 27 acres (11 ha) of property at the southern end of the island of Cerf in the Seychelles in 1989 after visiting it for a number of years. He bought the house, boats, emergency generators, and desalination plants in 2001, after upgrading it for three years to include three dwellings, boats, ambulance generators, and desalination plants.

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