Wilbur Smith detail of the local hunting and mining way of life, along with the romance and conflict that goes with it. As of 2014 his 35 published novels had sold more than 120 million copies, 24 million of them in Italy. Smith was born in Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia (now Kabwe, Zambia). His father was a metal worker who opened a sheet metal factory and then bought a cattle ranch. "My father was a tough man", said Smith. "He was used to working with his hands and had massively developed arms from cutting metal. He was a boxer, a hunter, very
Wilbur Smith Wilbur Smith Wilbur Addison Smith (born 9 January 1933) is a Zambian novelist specialising 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