For seven years he worked in labouring jobs, including dustman, gardener, gravedigger and construction worker.
[1] Since then he has hitch-hiked 9,000 miles around the US, lived in Italy and Greece, and acquired a pilot's licence for paragliders.
The tale of a British deserter in China at the time of the Cultural Revolution, Something Like a House won critical praise and went on to win both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award.
Smith was married with full Shinto rites to Chieko Nomura at a shrine in Southern Japan.
[5] Nisbet Chronicles Smith is also a poet and short story writer on a variety of topics.