Though the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is the Foundation’s flagship programme, The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation also supports adventure writing by offering two further awards: the Author Of Tomorrow for young writers and the New Voices award for a work-in-progress or fledgling idea.

Alan Stone was shortlisted in 2021 for what was then the Best Unpublished Manuscript award (the previous iteration of New Voices). In this piece, Alan uses his work and words to illustrate three key features of adventure writing: the importance of layering conflict, an honest and open-minded approach when representing different countries and cultures and, finally, the importance of enriching the lives of others.

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Layering Conflict, Creating Stories

By Alan Stone

Lesson One:  No two people are the same, and differences between the various characters’ perceptions can lead to difficult and sometimes conflicting positions. These differences may eventually be resolved and some sort of equilibrium restored, or they may not, but without these differences there would be no worthwhile story to tell.

In The Butterfly Hunter, Klara Brandt and Joszef Poganyi start out as very different characters. She is a sophisticated young woman of 33 living in New York, very much in control of herself and able to deal with others in a way which fits her personal agenda. Joszef is younger (27), impetuous, in many ways innocent and bears the psychological scars of having lived for most of his life in communist Hungary. He has romantic inclinations towards Klara, which she doesn’t reciprocate. She’s clever enough to be able to keep him at arm’s length (except on one single occasion) without spoiling their friendship. As time goes by, Joszef shows signs of outgrowing his youthful ideals, but it’s a temporary change and in the end he’s little changed from what he was at the beginning.

Perhaps the greatest difference highlighted in The Butterfly Hunter is that between the two protagonists and their missionary hosts in a remote region of Brazil. Klara and Joszef want the guilty fugitive to be punished for his crimes, while the missionaries, who are sheltering him, believe he should be forgiven. This leads to considerable difficulty, which Klara handles with polite diplomacy; she accepts their differences rather than attempting to resolve them:

‘Miss Klara, I know you think what you’ve done is right. You are certain of it, yes? You have no doubts. People like you weigh such things against practical criteria. You live by the rules set out by your fellow men. But you and I are different. I try to look at things as I think God our Creator might see them, at least to the best of my ability. But, unlike you, I am not always certain. I confess as much. I suggest we leave it at that.’

It was obvious to Klara that Mazzanti was completely impervious to her way of thinking. His logic worked in a different way from hers. It was based on the faith he’d been born into, the faith he was living with, the faith he’d die with. His views on right and wrong, virtue and sin, sprang from an ancient tradition, where the rules were formulated by a divine being and had little to do with the worldly concepts of crime, justice and punishment. For him, justice would be dished out in the next life… including, where appropriate, eternal torment in fire and brimstone. She knew that nothing she could say to him would change that.

In contrast, Joszef takes a blunter approach:

Then, he saw one of the padres coming towards him, an old man, walking slowly with the aid of a stick. The man called out to him. ‘You. Yes, you, boy. Wait.’ He shuffled closer, wheezing, and pointed with his stick at Joszef’s net. ‘What have you got in there? Is it a butterfly? I know you’ve been catching butterflies and killing them.’ 

Joszef was taken aback by the padre’s tone. ‘No, not a butterfly.’

‘Don’t lie to me, boy. Of course it is. Butterflies may be small and helpless but they were created by God and fulfil an important purpose in His plan. It is wicked of you to kill them. They feel the pain, and so does God. Don’t you know that? You are a very wicked boy and one day you will be punished for what you are doing.’

Joszef glared at him. ‘God created everything, didn’t he, Padre? Even the tiny stinging ants you stamp into the ground every time you walk. It’s not just the pretty things like butterflies. Mosquitoes. Your God created those too didn’t he? Doesn’t he care when they bite innocent children and give them malaria? What about fleas… germs… viruses like polio. Perhaps those were God’s mistakes.’

The padre’s face had turned purple. He was shaking. ‘How dare you say such things. It is downright blasphemy. You will surely go to Hell. Who are you to question the Almighty’s plan? And you talk of innocent children. Children are not innocent. Every one of them is born tainted by Original Sin. How ignorant you are of God’s ways. You are wicked and arrogant. You have the Devil inside you and you are doing his work.’

Joszef said nothing more. What would be the point? The old man turned around and ambled back the way he’d come, mumbling under his breath. Joszef felt a pang of remorse for the way he’d handled things. He shouldn’t have behaved like that. After all, the padre was only saying what he truly believed, however misguided. Why had he behaved so badly? He knew why. He disliked being referred to as a boy. Immature. Not a grown man. That’s what had upset him. It always did. 

Lesson Two: When writing about different countries and peoples it is essential to represent beliefs and cultural traditions in an open and honest way.

The Butterfly Hunter underlines the fact that ‘Western’ culture is inevitably replacing the traditional beliefs and cultures of indigenous peoples. Whether this is, on balance, good or bad is arguable, but to clarify my perspective, I’d like to share an example of culture-transfer that horrified me when I was living with a group of missionaries in Brazil’s River Negro region. One day, I met a small group of Tukano Indians who’d walked through the jungle for four days carrying a hammock in which I saw the dead body of a young boy. Later, one of the missionaries explained that the little boy had been accidentally shot dead by his older brother. The Indians had carried his body all this way, expecting the missionary would bring him back to life, just as Jesus Christ had come back to life. I presume they were disappointed.

I explore the gap between so-called ‘Western’ culture and the culture of indigenous Amazonian tribes in my novel as openly as I can; for example, making clear that the distinction is becoming increasingly blurred. On the one hand, the Kuru Indians are dangerous and they attack any white person who ventures into their ancestral territory. On the other hand, those Tukano Indians, influenced by years of contact with missionaries, have adopted many components of ‘Western’ culture. We are all the same under the skin:

O’Connor stared at Klara, clearly shocked by what he’d heard. ‘Do you imagine the Tukano are so different from us, young lady? Not fully human, perhaps? No, the Tukano were created by God like the rest of us. When they die, their souls go to heaven just like ours – if they’ve been baptised. You wouldn’t be some sort of anthropologist, would you? Heaven forbid!’

Lesson Three: Each of us lives only a single short lifetime, and that’s it. Yet through the medium of the novel we can each live – albeit vicariously – the life experiences of innumerable others, often in very different circumstances from our own. It’s the writer’s job to provide the raw material which can thus enrich readers’ lives. 

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A.B.Stone lives in London. A lifelong career in medical research has taken him to many distant lands. The Butterfly Hunter, published by The Book Guild,  is available to buy now. You can read an interview with the author here.

The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation is a charitable organisation established in 2015 by the late bestselling author Wilbur Smith and his wife, Niso. The Foundation empowers writers, promotes literacy and advances adventure writing as a genre, working to uplift, inspire and educate writers and readers of all ages across the world. The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is their flagship programme, and is a global prize that supports and celebrates the best adventure writing today.

You can find out more about the Prize here: and can follow them on Instagram: @adventurewritingprize.

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