一年的孤独与发现：南极企鹅的美 Outdoor Book: Empire Antarctica
Shan Gao
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 opportunity 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 – the book explores a world of great beauty conjured from the simplest of elements, the hardship of living at 50˚C below zero, and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring.
Empire Antarctica is the story of one man and his fascination with the world’s loneliest continent, as well as the emperor penguins who weather the winter with him. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best.
The Author: Gavin Francis
On being the 2013 Non Fiction Winner: “Having your book shortlisted for an award is a little like making it onto one of the Apollo missions – a feeling of immense privilege, a sense of gratitude, and satisfaction that your hard work has paid off. Whether a book wins feels almost secondary; like being the one who gets to walk on the moon.
“I’ve still not come down to earth. Empire Antarctica describes a very personal experience of solitude in one of the widest, emptiest, most austere and elemental landscapes on earth, but it was written between Bo’ness, Orkney and Edinburgh while working as a busy GP. I wanted to write the best book I could while at the same time trying to do the best by my patients. That it has won is a tremendous endorsement of what I’m trying to do.
“I’m grateful to the Scottish education system for encouraging that sort of cross-disciplinary ambition, and that Scottish culture aspires to value our poets and makars as much as it does our doctors and engineers.”
Gavin Francis was born in Ayrshire in 1975, and brought up in Fife. After qualifying from medical school in Edinburgh he spent ten years travelling, visiting all seven continents. He has worked as a general practitioner and emergency medicine specialist in east and west Africa, in India, and journeyed throughout the European Arctic (the subject of his first book True North – Travels in Arctic Europe). He has lectured at the Scott Polar Research Institute, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, as well as many literary festivals. Empire Antarctica was short-listed for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. It will be released in Germany and the United States next month. Gavin lives in Edinburgh, where he’s usually to be found in the National Library reading rooms or in the GP surgery where he works part-time