On Leopard Rock: A Life of Adventures
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4.2 • 9 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Wilbur Smith has lived an incredible life of adventure, and now he shares the extraordinary true stories that have inspired his fiction.
I've been writing novels for over fifty years. I was lucky enough to miss the big wars and not get shot, but lucky enough to grow up among the heroes who had served in them and learn from their example. I have lucked into things continuously. I have done things which have seemed appalling at the time,disastrous even, but out of them have come another story or a deeper knowledge of human character and the ability to express myself better on paper, write books which people enjoy reading.
Along the way, I have lived a life that I could never have imagined. I have been privileged to meet people from all corners of the globe, I have been wherever my heart has desired and in the process my books have taken readers to many, many places. I always say I've started wars, I've burned down cities and I've killed hundreds of thousands of people - but only in my imagination!
From being attacked by lions to close encounters with deadly reef sharks, from getting lost in the African bush without water to crawling the precarious tunnels of gold mines, from marlin fishing with Lee Marvin to near death from crash-landing a Cessna airplane, from brutal school days to redemption through writing and falling in love, Wilbur Smith tells us the intimate stories of his life that have been the raw material for his fiction. Always candid, sometimes hilarious and never less than thrillingly entertaining, On Leopard Rockis testament to a writer whose life is as rich and eventful as his novels are compellingly unputdownable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Writing in the direct, lean style of his fiction, Smith revisits the significant milestones of his writing life, during which he wrote nearly 40 novels that sold more than 130 million copies worldwide. The Zambian author begins with his coming of age, spent with his father, an engineer and big game hunter, in 1940s Northern Rhodesia. Through his father, he acquired the sportsman's code that hunting was not "done for joy. Hunting was a way of life." He worked on his father's cattle farm and at various jobs until he attended Rhodes University in South Africa, graduating in 1954, then worked as an accountant. In 1964 he published his first novel, When the Lion Feeds, set in 1870 South Africa and involving a hunting accident between twin brothers. That was made into a Hollywood movie, as were many of his subsequent novels, such as The Dark of the Sun (1965), about mercenaries during the 1960s Congo crisis, and Shout at the Devil, about ivory poachers in 1915 Zanzibar (he describes a scripted fight on the set between actors Roger Moore and Lee Marvin that nearly turned real). Smith writes most prominently about his father, who died in 1985 from lung cancer and who carried a copy of When the Lion Feeds in his car to show off to his friends. Honest and intimate, Smith's memoir tells of an extraordinary life of writing.
Customer Reviews
Absolutely gripping!
This book was absolutely gripping, a total joy to read. Since the book arrived I was not able to put it down. The writing flowed, and I learnt a great deal about South Africa in regard to hunting, politics, mining, ect, this book has just about everything.
Wilbur Smith has led a fantastic life filled with adventure and determination. He has saw and done what most can only dream of doing.
‘On leopard rock’ has introduced me to an interesting man/author with plenty of stories to tell, and many novels to read, that I would have otherwise never heard about; though I’m very glad I now do.
After reading this book I will definitely be reading more by this author and will be looking forward to more of his work in the future.