He revealed how he met his new wife in a bookstore - when she was contemplating buying a book by a rival author.

And he also told us how he sits down on the same date - February 6 - every second year, to write his next book.

click here to watch Breakfast's interview in full with Wilbur Smith

Farming family

Wilbur Smith, who's 70 this year, is one of the world's most successful and prolific novelists.

All 28 of his books are still in print - and they've been translated into 26 languages.

But Smith's choice of career wasn't obvious from the start.

He was born into a white colonial farming family in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). His father boasted that he'd never read a book in his life: he preferred farming and hunting instead.

The young Wilbur wanted to be a journalist, but his father disapproved. So, he became a civil servant instead - and only took up writing when his first marriage collapsed.