{"id":15927,"date":"2023-09-16T14:27:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T13:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/blog\/?p=15927"},"modified":"2025-01-16T16:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T16:04:15","slug":"precious-sketch-and-poem-from-award-winning-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/blog\/precious-sketch-and-poem-from-award-winning-author\/","title":{"rendered":"Precious Sketch and Poem From Award-winning Author"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Alexander McCall Smith is a prolific author of fiction, best-known for&nbsp;<strong>The No 1 Ladies&#8217; Detective Agency&nbsp;<\/strong>series set in Botswana and featuring Precious Ramotswe. In an interview with the Sunday Times earlier this year he&nbsp;revealed his busy life which sees him wake between 4am and 6am with an&nbsp;&#8220;aim&nbsp;to&nbsp;write 1,500 words before breakfast.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>McCall Smith was born in Zimbabwe to British parents. He lived in&nbsp;Botswana for a time, teaching law at the University.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A position as Professor of&nbsp;Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh&nbsp; saw McCall Smith settle in Scotland,&nbsp;where he has lived with his family for over 30 years in a quiet neighbourhood also&nbsp;home to&nbsp;J.K Rowling and Ian Rankin at one time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He splits his time between Edinburgh, travelling and at his summer house in Argyll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years ago McCall Smith purchased the uninhabited&nbsp;<em>Cairns of Coll<\/em>&nbsp;in the Hebrides &#8211; a string of wild islets. He hopes&nbsp;to leave them just as they are, as a sanctuary for&nbsp;wildlife.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are delighted to have his support this year,&nbsp; and thank long-time Sketch for Survival supporter,&nbsp; Edinburgh-based artist Carol Barrett,&nbsp; for approaching him for a sketch. Thank you Carol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This lovely&nbsp;signed original artwork includes hand-written verse:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Mountain Gorilla<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Small dark eyes in such a head,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Features without much recess,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Muscular, a large genetic cousin,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For that is what he is to us, this relative,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Who lives in a fortress of vines<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>And towering trees, who finds fruit<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>On high branches, whose ceiling<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Is the African Sky, who is close<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To clouds, who finds shelter in mists,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Who wants only to live in his wandering band,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>His family; not much different from us;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In his eyes can be seen our own yearning,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Our experience of our mutual world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You will be able to see&nbsp;this artwork, along with many others, during our autumn exhibitions. We will be in Edinburgh between 26th and 29th October, and in London between the 8th and 12th of November.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The exhibition collection will be sold via online auction &#8211; opening in October and concluding Sunday 12 November with the proceeds&nbsp;supporting nominated projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexander McCall Smith is a prolific author of fiction, best-known for&nbsp;The No 1 Ladies&#8217; Detective Agency&nbsp;series set in Botswana and featuring Precious Ramotswe. In an interview with the Sunday Times&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[517],"tags":[47],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Precious Sketch and Poem From Award-winning Author - Explorers Against Extinction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are delighted to have the support of Alexander McCall Smith who has donated a sketch to Sketch for Survival 2023.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/blog\/precious-sketch-and-poem-from-award-winning-author\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta 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