Wilbur Smith
Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Northern Rhodesian-born British-South African novelist specializing in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries.
He gained a f ...
about an archeological dig. The novel depicts a search for a
Phoenicia
Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...
n city in modern
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
.
The novel was a favourite of Smith's, who claimed it was heavily influenced by H. Rider Haggard. Smith:
It was a very important book for me in my development as a writer because at that stage I was starting to become enchanted by the lure of Hollywood. There had been some movies made of my books and I thought "whoa, what a way to go… All that money!" and I thought "hold on – am I a scriptwriter or am I a real writer?" Writing a book that could never be filmed was my declaration of independence. I made it so diffuse, with different ages and brought characters back as different entities. It was a complex book, it gave me a great deal of pleasure but that was the inspiration – to break free.
Plot
Archeologist Benjamin Kazin with the aid of his assistant Sally searches Botswana for what he believes to be the remains of the ancient
Phoenicia
Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...
n city of Opet.
Background
Smith was inspired in 1971 to begin work on the novel by memories of a childhood visit with his family to the ruins of
Great Zimbabwe
Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of the modern country of Zimbabwe, near Masvingo. It was settled from 1000 AD, and served as the capital of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe from the 13th century. It is the largest stone struc ...
in 1941 and his resulting obsession with civilizations rising and falling. Work on the novel was begun during a writing retreat in a caravan in the Bvumba Mountains.
Despite the subject matter being different from his previous novels, pre-orders were four times higher than any of them.
The novel began Smith's tradition of every hardback first edition having an embossed sunbird on the lower right hand corner of the front cover.
Smith later named his home on the foothills of Table Mountain in Cape Town "Sunbird Hill". He also named his private trust, the Sunbird Trust.
Reception
Academic Martin Hall has criticized ''The Sunbird'' for an alleged inherent stance against
African nationalism
African nationalism is an umbrella term which refers to a group of political ideologies in sub-Saharan Africa, which are based on the idea of national self-determination and the creation of nation states.white rule in southern Africa.
Another academic wrote that the book " is the most complete fictional exploration of an exotic Great Zimbabwe since ''Benita''. It confirms that as the prospect of war loomed, white Rhodesians felt the same insecurity as they had in 1890s; and, as they had done in the 1890s, they turned to the ruined city for inspiration. Wilbur Smith, who was born in Zambia and briefly lived in Rhodesia, identifies with their vulnerability."
Adaptation
Film rights to the book were purchased by Michael Klinger who had filmed two other Smith novels. However, as of 2023 no film has resulted.
Progressive death metal
Progressive metal (often shortened to prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven sound of the former with t ...
/
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...
band
Opeth
Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. The band incorporates folk music, folk, blues, classical music, classical, and jazz elements into its usually lengthy compositions, as well as strong influences from deat ...
took its name from the word "Opet", which in the novel is the name of a fictional Phoenician city in South Africa and whose name is translated as "City of the Moon".