As Alexander McCall Smith said in an interview with Pinkie Mekgwe, “I admire Botswana a great deal. I think this is a remarkable country which has achieved a great deal and I think that it is a special place. I wanted to tell a readership in other countries who might not know that. I wanted them to know, and I think they are getting that message through Mma Ramotswe” (Mekgwe 183).
”PM: Botswana comes through as a character in its own right in these novels. AMS: Botswana comes through as being the hero, yes. I admire people who are proud of their country. This applies not only in Botswana, this applies anywhere…Mma Ramotswe says that she is a patriot and that she is proud of her country. And that’s quite moving, I think” (Mekgwe 184).
In the interview, Alexander McCall Smith mentions that, since the publication of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, sales of red bush tea, also called rooibos tea, have increased by 70% overall (Mekgwe 184).
McCall Smith credits his career as an author to having been a voracious reader when he was a child, and says that it is a logical progression, from being a reader to being a writer (Mekgwe 185).
Citation Example
Mekgwe, Pinkie. “All That is Fine in the Human Condition: Crafting Words, Creating Mma Ramotswe.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 37, no. 2, Summer 2006, pp. 176-186. Academic Search Complete, doi:10.1353/ral.2006.0052.
