Alan Scholefield

Alan Scholefield (15 January 1931 – 26 October 2017) was a South African writer famous for his Macrae and Silver series.He lived in Hampshire and was married to Australian novelist Anthea Goddard. They had three daughters. Born in Cape Town, Scholefield was educated at Queen's College, Queenstown and the University of Cape Town where he read Eng. Lit. and where he won an athletics blue and broke a South African junior record. After university, from which he graduated in 1951, Scholefield became a journalist on The Cape Times and The Cape Argus.

Scholefield was one of a group of journalists and writers who left South Africa in the sixties to escape the rigid apartheid of the Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd.

With his first wife Patricia, he lived in Spain writing short stories for America, Canada and London. The marriage broke up in 1960 and in 1962 he married the Australian journalist and novelist Anthea Goddard and settled in London. He worked in the London bureau of the Sydney Morning Herald twice, in 1954 and 1960. Then as Defence Correspondent of The Scotsman. After his first marriage broke up his second wife encouraged him to leave journalism to write novels.

Scholefield's first novel A View of Vultures was published in 1966. In addition to his novels, Scholefield has written a non-fiction history of three African monarchies, The Dark Kingdoms. In the late 1960s his book Great Elephant was optioned by the American producer Jud Kinberg and sold on to CBS New York for which Scholefield did the first and second draft screenplays. He has written three dramas for South African Broadcasting (SABC) and a stage adaptation of Treasure Island.

In 1981 Scholefield's novel Venom was made into a film starring Klaus Kinski, Nicol Williamson and Oliver Reed.