Gavin Francis

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.

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.

One of the best travel titles I have read in a long time. Thoughtful, lyrical, extremely well written, it’s a triumph.

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.

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.

A Sunday Times Travel Book of Month: 'A book full of wonder. Brilliantly imagined, superbly brought to life'

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

A valuable addition to polar literature, vividly describing the brutal, but beautiful, realities of undergoing an Antarctic winter

An extraordinary book -- lyrical, precise, intoxicating and with a remarkable spiritual depth

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

An awe-inspiring memoir of a modern-day pioneer who writes with a poetic style and descriptive flourish that is part education, part enthrallment, and wholly entertaining.

Part-travelogue, part memoir, part natural history book, a fascinating, lyrical account of one of the strangest places on earth and its majestic inhabitants.

He writes beautifully about the strange other-worldly allure of this habitat of ice and snow

He perceives...continuous sights, sounds and sensations, writing as vividly and as fiercely in darkness at noon or in sunlight at midnight

Excellent mix of travel and nature writing

[An] intense and lyrical portrait... shines with a clarity and lyricism descended from Thoreau

His [Gavin's] description of what he found out about himself and his re-navigation of his personal compass in this bleakly remote location is utterly compelling

Travel writing at its very best combining evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world

A brilliant combination of Antarctic essay, travelogue and autobiography. For a man that wanted to be alone, he writes so well you're there with him

An absorbing account of life at the end of the world

Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins

* WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2013 * 
 
*Shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Biography Prize* 
* Shortlisted for the 2013 RSL Ondaatje Prize * 
* Shortlisted for Banff Adventure Travel Prize * 
* Shortlisted for Saltire Book of the Year Award * 
 
Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the base-camp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter. 
 
Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and very little human history, but also a rare oppurtunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. Following the penguins throughout the year -- from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness -- Gavin Francis explores a world of great beauty conjured from the simplest elements, the hardship of living at 50°C below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring.

Gavin Francis

Praise for 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.

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 o ...

One of the best travel titles I have read in a long time. Thoughtful, lyrical, extremely well written, it’s a triumph.

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.

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 o ...

One of the best travel titles I have read in a long time. Thoughtful, lyrical, extremely well written, it’s a triumph.

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.

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 o ...

One of the best travel titles I have read in a long time. Thoughtful, lyrical, extremely well written, it’s a triumph.

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter