Bestselling British author Jeffrey Archer was a regular visitor to the UAE, returning several times to meet fans at literary festivals in Dubai and Sharjah during his five-decade career.
Archer, whose novels sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, died suddenly and peacefully at his home on Monday aged 86, his publisher HarperCollins said. He died “between writing sessions”, a day before the publication of Adam and Eve.
While Archer's career took him around the world, the UAE became a recurring stop. He appeared several times at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai, including in 2013, 2017 and 2023, and was a guest at the Sharjah International Book Fair in 2013.
In 2017, when Archer was 76 and had already sold hundreds of millions of books, he admitted he was not particularly fond of travelling. But there was one thing that kept drawing him back to literary festivals.
“I do it for things like this. To go out and meet the fans,” he told The National that year on the sidelines of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. “Every festival I attend, the room is full with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. This is all such a privilege.”
A storyteller first
Archer's said he considered storytelling, rather than literary acclaim, to be his greatest strength. Speaking to The National in Dubai in 2013, he said it was ultimately readers who determined whether an author could tell a compelling story.
“The public will tell you. Not the critics or the clever talkers. The public can always tell who is the storyteller,” he said.
“Being a storyteller is like being a ballet dancer, a concert pianist or an opera singer. Of course, you have to work very hard but you need the gift.”
That same year, during a visit to the Sharjah International Book Fair, he reflected on how unexpectedly that gift had turned into a career.
“I've always been a raconteur, but I didn't really believe, until I wrote Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, that people would pay you for telling stories,” he told The National. “The storytelling, frankly, is a God-given gift.”
His 1976 debut was followed three years later by Kane and Abel, the novel that became one of his best-known works and helped establish an international readership that would eventually stretch across 119 countries.
At the Sharjah International Book Fair in 2013, he spoke about the particularly large following he had developed in India, recalling the lengths some readers would go to meet him during his visits to the country.
"It was a shock," he said of the legions of fans he encountered on his first trip. "They were all young women, 16 to 20, very enthusiastic.
"One fan had taken three days to cross India to get to me and he just wanted to say thank you and then he went. I chased after him but I lost him. I felt so guilty about the fact that he'd come all that way."
Competing with himself
Even after decades of bestselling books, Archer told The National that success had not made him complacent.
“The worst fear after 16 number ones in a row, is number 2,” he said. “I am always competing with myself.
“I can now be lazy for three or four books and make millions. But I don't need the money. I don't need anything, actually. But I want to get better each time and that's what drives me.”
That work ethic continued well into his 80s. HarperCollins described him following his death as “the master storyteller and an editor's dream”.
His death came only a day after he appeared with broadcaster Gyles Brandreth at a sold-out event at London's Leicester Square Theatre, where he met readers and signed hundreds of books.
Politics, prison and a second career
Archer's appearances in the UAE also came after some dramatic chapters in his life. Before becoming a novelist, he had been a Conservative MP and later served as deputy chairman of the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher.
His political career was eventually overshadowed by scandal. In 2001, he was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice after lying during a libel case he had brought against the Daily Star. He was sentenced to four years in prison and served two.
Archer later turned that experience into material for his writing, publishing three volumes of A Prison Diary.
Speaking to The National in 2011, he said writing had helped him deal with his time behind bars.
“I handled it by writing, really. It was a coping mechanism: I was killing time because prison is so boring. Such a waste of time.”
His conviction did not end his publishing career. Archer returned to fiction and continued producing bestselling novels and short stories for more than two decades.
“I've had a hell of a life,” he said. “Fortunately, I'm able to get a lot of it into books.”
Coming back to the UAE
When he returned to the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in 2023, as the event celebrated its 15th anniversary, Archer was in his 80s but remained as passionate about storytelling as ever.
During the festival, he spoke to The National's Books of My Life podcast about the books that had shaped him and the craft behind a writing career spanning almost five decades.
Archer's final novel, Adam and Eve, is being published on Tuesday.
He had also been due to appear at the Cheltenham Literature Festival this weekend to discuss his final novel.
