Wilbur Smith obituary
At the age of eight, Wilbur Smith was given his grandfather's Remington rifle, which had 122 notches on the butt. He shot his first lion when he was 14. Such a boy seemed destined to become a hunter, but it was on paper that Smith realised his dreams of adventure - and millions shared them through his 49 novels over half a century.
In recent years Smith, who has died aged 88, would say proudly: I don't write literature, I write stories," and added that he always saw himself as the hero in his books and always fell in love with his female characters. His African settings and blood-and-thunder approach to plotting proved a winning formula. Each of his thrillers, translated into 30 languages, sold in their millions, with his total sales more than 140m.
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