Author Discusses Fact and Fiction

Speaking in front of a packed Sackler Museum Auditorium on Thursday, Scottish novelist and law professor Alexander McCall-Smith admitted to writing about real-life acquaintances in his fiction. “I take great pleasure in putting real people into books. I take their permission, well, not entirely,” he said, before warning event host Professor Arthur I. Applbaum that he might come up in a future novel.

McCall-Smith, a former professor of medical ethics at the University of Edinburgh, was born in Zimbabwe and lived for many years in Botswana. His fictional oeuvre includes “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series, about the adventures of Mma Ramotswe, a female detective in Botswana, and the “Sunday Philosophy Club” series, featuring the philosopher Isabel Dalhousie, as well as serial fiction works.

In his talk, “How to Do Things with People who Aren’t: The Moral Responsibility of the Author,” McCall-Smith used examples from his work and life to illustrate the thorny relationship between an author and his readers.

“[McCall-Smith] is a great writer who also has a background in law and medical ethics, and we wanted him to bring those disparate strands together in a philosophical reflection on his work,” Applbaum, the acting Director of the Kennedy School’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, said when asked why he had invited McCall-Smith to deliver the Safra Center’s last public lecture of the year.

During the speech, he touched on the complex theoretical issues raised by readers’ investment in fictional works, especially when the line between fictional characters and reality becomes blurry.

He said that this was especially pertinent to serial fiction and book series. He added that both non-fiction and fiction writers have a moral responsibility to their readers. “The fact that fiction is not real is not the point: the reader responds as it if is real,” he said. He characterized serial fiction in particular as a type of contract between writer and reader in which the reader agrees to keep reading as long as the writer produces satisfying work.

McCall Smith said that he accepts this obligation.

“It considerably constricts my freedom of action, but in a way that I don’t regret,” he said.

Several audience members said that they enjoyed McCall-Smith’s musings.

“I found him hilarious and captivating,” said attendee Anne Banhill.

“It was an entertaining, witty and deeply philosophical meditation on a subject all too rarely studied by ethicists and philologists,” said David Brendel.