South African writer Wilbur Smith, author of many adventure novels translated around the world, died in Cape Town on Saturday at the age of 88, his publisher announced.
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“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.”, indicates a press release published on the Wilbur Smith Books website. He was the author of 49 novels translated into some 30 languages, which have sold a total of 140 million copies, according to the publisher.
Born January 9, 1933 in Northern Rhodesia, present-day Zambia, to British parents, Wilbur Smith had known fame from his first novel, When the lion is hungry (When the Lion Feeds), published in 1964. Its greatest success was the monumental Courtney Saga, a series of thirteen novels recounting the destiny of a family over more than three centuries, from the beginning of the colonization of Africa by Europeans to apartheid in South Africa.
Wilbur smith “transported its readers to gold mines in South Africa, to pirates in the Indian Ocean, to buried treasures in tropical islands, to conflicts in Arabia and to Khartoum, ancient Egypt, to the “WWII Germany, Paris, India, the Americas and Antarctica. He introduced them to ruthless diamond and slave traders, and big game hunters in the jungles and the bush.”, wrote the editor in the press release. He thanked the “millions of Smith fans around the world who have treasured his incredible writing”.