- Wilbur Addison Smith (born 9 January 1933[1]) is a British 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.
- 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 spent the first years of his life on his father’s cattle ranch, comprising 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of forest, hills, and savannah.
- Smith attended boarding school at Cordwalles Preparatory School in Natal (now Kwa-Zulu Natal).
- For high school Smith attended Michaelhouse, a boarding school situated in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
- Smith initially worked on his father’s cattle ranch and also served with the Rhodesian Police.
- Smith wanted to become a journalist, writing about social conditions in South Africa, but his father’s advice to “get a real job” prompted him to become a tax accountant (chartered accountant).
- In 2002, the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities granted Smith the Inaugural Sport Shooting Ambassador Award.
- Smith was working for his father when he married his first wife, Anne, in a Presbyterian Church on July 5, 1957, in Harare (Salisbury), Zimbabwe.
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Wilbur Smith
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