The Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation has inaugurated a new ‘Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize’ 2022, for the “Author of Tomorrow”…

The competition is open to young people across the world who have completed a short piece of adventure writing in English.

Free to enter. Deadline: 22nd April 2022.

Wilbur Smith (1933-2021) was for many decades the author of bestselling adventure novels, which gave rise to seven movies. More recently he published a series of novels set in Ancient Egypt (1993-2021), one of which became a 1999 TV mini-series. But his later books show a decline and the best starting point to his work is often said to be the much earlier 17th century maritime trilogy, Birds of Prey, Monsoon, and then Blue Horizon. These prequels then lead naturally into one of his best series, the ‘Courtney’ series set in Africa.