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Bestselling Author Wilbur Smith dies, over 140 million copies of novels sold

WorldBestselling Author Wilbur Smith dies, over 140 million copies of novels sold

Zambian-born South African novelist Wilbur Smith dies at the age of 88 in Cape Town though statements do not reveal the cause of his death.

Zambian-born South African novelist Wilbur Smith has died at the age of 88 in Cape Town. “Global bestselling author Wilbur Smith died unexpectedly this afternoon at his Cape Town home after a morning of reading and writing with his wife Niso by his side,” a Saturday statement on the writer’s official website says.

Wilbur Smith was born on January 9, 1933, in Zambia. When he was just 18 months old he got ill with cerebral malaria, but miraculously survived. More than 140 million copies of his novels have been sold worldwide in over 30 languages. According to his website, Wilbur Smith’s first novel When the Lion Feeds published in 1964, was an instant bestseller.

Wilbur Addison Smith was born on 9 January 1933 and died on 13 November 2021, specializing in historical fiction about the international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints of both black and white families.

An accountant by training, he gained a film contract with his first published novel When the Lion Feeds. This encouraged him to become a full-time writer, and he developed three long chronicles of the South African experience which all became best-sellers. He still acknowledges his publisher Charles Pick’s advice to “write about what you know best”, and his work takes in much authentic detail of the local hunting and mining way of life, along with the romance and conflict that goes with it. His 35 published novels had sold more than 140 million copies, 24 million of them in Italy.

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