Like most readers, I first encountered Alexander McCall Smith through his wildly successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Since then, I have devoured his writing, but with more than 80 novels to his name, McCall Smith tends to write faster than one can read. When I was asked to interview him at The Hindu LFL 2016 literary festival, I was intimidated by the prospect. Not unexpectedly, I found him as pleasant, considerate, thoughtful, generous, and funny as many of his charact