Synopses & Reviews
Damon Galgut's third novel, a fictionalized biography of English author E.M. Forster, focuses on Forster's many years in India and the process of writing his masterpiece, A Passage to India. This compact, finely wrought novel also addresses Forster's unforgiving childhood in England and the homosexuality he feared and repressed throughout his life. Psychologically acute without being sentimental, Forster's relationships are described with compassion and great care. Galgut is a master at constructing strange, compelling landscapes, and Arctic Summer shifts seamlessly between staid, restricting England and Cairo and vibrant, pleasantly, absurd India. Moments of gentle humor shine through the sparse prose, lending Forster a humanity that makes his story all the more heartbreaking.
Review
"This is a wise and brilliant book." -
Times
"A beautiful book, strikingly conceived and hauntingly written, a writer's novel par excellence without a clumsy word in it." --The Guardian
"Galgut's powerful writing is honest and insightful, polished as it is to a marble-like perfection." --The Globe and Mail
Synopsis
The year is 1912, and the SS Birmingham is approaching India. On board is Edward Morgan Forster, a reserved man taunted by writer's block, attempting to come to terms with his art and his repressed sexuality. Damon Galgut's brilliant fictional biography lures readers into E.M. Foster's heroic journey of self-discovery, as the novelist confronts his fraught childhood, falls in unrequited love with his closest friend, and finds himself surprisingly freed to explore his "minorite" desires as secretary to a most unusual Maharajah. Slowly, the strands of a story begin to gather in his mind: a sense of impending menace, lust in close confines, under a hot, empty sky. But it will be another twelve years and a second stay in India before the publication of his finest work, A Passage to India.
Shifting across the landscapes of India, Egypt, and England, Forster's life is informed by his relationships--from Mohammed el Adl, an Egyptian tram conductor whose companionship becomes invaluable, to the Greek literary titan, poet C.P. Cavafy. This reimagining of Forster's life is at once enlightening, humorous and deeply convincing--a clear ad sympathetic psychological probing of one of Britain's finest novelists. As The Financial Times notes: "The concern is Forster's inner life, and Galgut inhabits him with such sympathetic completeness, and in prose of such modest excellence that he starts to breathe on the page." Readers will share in his struggle with repression and self-acceptance, and witness the gradual unfolding of a literary masterpiece. Arctic Summer is a powerfully candid portait of an author, created by one of the finet writers of his generation.
Synopsis
The year is 1912, and the SS City of Birmingham is approaching India. On board is Edward Morgan Forster, a reserved man taunted by writer's block.
So opens Booker Prize-winner Damon Galgut's brilliant fictional biography of E.M. Forster, Arctic Summer. Forster's life was dictated above all by his belief in storytelling and by his relationships-from Mohammed el-Adl, an Egyptian tram conductor whose companionship becomes invaluable, to the Greek literary titan, poet C.P. Cavafy. Galgut's reimagining of Forster's life is at once enlightening, humorous, and deeply convincing-a clear and sympathetic psychological probing of one of Britain's finest novelists.
Synopsis
This "beautifully written and utterly compelling" novel by the acclaimed South African author traces E. M. Forester's journey of self-discovery (The Times, London).
The year is 1912, and the SS Birmingham is approaching India. On board is Edward Morgan Forster, a reserved man taunted by writer's block, attempting to come to terms with his art and his homosexuality. During his travels, the novelist confronts his fraught childhood and falls in unrequited love with his closest friend. He also finds himself surprisingly freed to explore his "minorite" desires as secretary to a most unusual Maharajah.
Slowly, the strands of a story begin to gather in Forster's mind: a sense of impending menace, lust in close confines, under a hot, empty sky. But it will be another twelve years and a second stay in India before the publication of his finest work, A Passage to India. Shifting across the landscapes of India, Egypt, and England, Forster's life is informed by his relationships--from the Egyptian tram conductor Mohammed el-Adl, to the Greek poet and literary titan C. P. Cavafy. Damon Galgut's reimagining of Forster's life is a clear and sympathetic psychological probing of one of Britain's finest novelists.
"Galgut inhabits Forster] with such sympathetic completeness, and in prose of such modest excellence that he starts to breathe on the page."--Financial Times
About the Author
Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1963. A previous novel, The Good Doctor, was a finalist for the Booker Prize and the commonwealth Writer's Prize. His new book, In a Strange Room, has been shortlisted for the 2010 Booker Prize. He lives in Capetown.