Alexander McCall Smith

At the 11th edition of the Galle Literary Festival (GLF), Booker Prize-winning author Shehan Karunatilaka hosted an elaborate gourmet dinner and arrack-tasting session at the Jetwing Lighthouse hotel’s Nihal’s restaurant. There, he read his prose poem, Arrack Attack — a 10-point primer on the virtues (and vices) of the distilled alcoholic drink made from the fermented sap of coconut flowers — and some passages from his first novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew. The Commonwealth Prize-winning book is rich with…

I’ve just finished reading book number three of 23 (!) from the Number One Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. Morality for Beautiful Girls, too, was a hug for the heart.The setting for the book, as always, is South Africa’s northern neighbour, Botswana, whose capital is Gaborone. Traversing the dry landscape pocked by green farmlands and pastures and patient folks, “traditionally built” Precious Ramotswe uses common sense and kindness, and the “old Botswana morality” of community bonds, to massive…