Empire Antarctica

A finely written account of an extreme experience of the Antarctic, worthy to stand beside some of the great travel narratives in the English language. * RSL Ondaatje Prize Judges *
Empire Antarctica is the embodiment of everything I admire in travel writing – a great journey, intense isolation, wide reading, vivid writing, scientific research, and something in the nature of an old-fashioned ordeal. That Gavin Francis is a medical doctor, with an important role to play in the darkness and cold at the ends of the earth, is a bonus. I loved this book. – Paul Theroux
One of the best travel titles I have read in a long time. Thoughtful, lyrical, extremely well written, it’s a triumph. – Giles Foden * Conde Nast Traveller *
A beautiful, profound and highly readable account of a remarkable personal adventure. Francis’s pacing is deft, his prose vivid, his research worn lightly. This is probably as close as most of us will ever get to experiencing a modern polar winter. Empire Antarctica is surely destined to become a standard, not so much of travel as of staying very still. – Ed O’Loughlin * Daily Telegraph *
Francis’ best writing (and it is excellent)… is Robert Macfarlane on ice. This writing achieves the ‘quilted quality’ of silence, and through it we are brought to a new landscape of words. – Katherine MacInnes * Literary Review *
A Sunday Times Travel Book of Month: ‘A book full of wonder. Brilliantly imagined, superbly brought to life’ – Anthony Sattin * Sunday Times *
This is the sort of book that gives obsession a very good name. Here, in a cold, silent place you realise that obsession is another name for love. And love leads to extraordinary and beautiful writing – this is a wonderful book – Sara Maitland
A valuable addition to polar literature, vividly describing the brutal, but beautiful, realities of undergoing an Antarctic winter – Ranulph Fiennes
An extraordinary book – lyrical, precise, intoxicating and with a remarkable spiritual depth – A.L. Kennedy
One of those rare books that leaves you with an almost breathless sense of the wonders of the planet. Beautiful, erudite and informative, it speaks joyously of the indomitability of Man and the natural world alike – Esther Woolfson

Gavin Francis was born in 1975 and brought up in Fife, Scotland. After qualifying from medical school in Edinburgh he spent ten years travelling, visiting all seven continents. He has worked in Africa and India, made several trips to the Arctic, and crossed Eurasia and Australasia by motorcycle. His first book, True North, was published in 2008. His next book, Empire Antarctica, was shortlisted for the Costa and Ondaatje Prizes and won Scottish Book of the Year in 2013. He contributes regularly to the Guardian, London Review of Books, and the New York Review of Books. He lives in Edinburgh.

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