Arctic Summer

Could well be one of the finest literary works published this year... Damon Galgut, among the finest living writers, has not only given life to a quiet enigma who suffered in love but looked at the inspiration and need that helped that enigma write six major novels. * Irish Times * Beautifully written and utterly compelling... A vivid, moving account of the man that makes you want to read all his books again. * The Times * Galgut is extremely good on Forster's anxieties, his loneliness, his unworldliness... The portrait is beautifully nuanced, a mixture of bold, colourful strokes and delicate little flicks of the brush. * Sunday Times * With insight and seemingly effortless fluidity, Mr Galgut has written a beautiful, and at times funny, novel that movingly captures the duality of one of Britain's most thoughtful authors. * Economist * It is a project to which Galgut, whose fiction has often covered the terrain of love, race and politics, seems perfectly suited as a writer... A remarkable, lyrical tribute. * Guardian * Galgut has so seamlessly incorporated Forster's diaries, letters and novels into his narrative that it is often hard to tell which novelist is which. * Daily Telegraph * A masterly piece of fiction. Delicate and detailed. * Daily Mail * A beautifully imagined piece, getting deep inside the mind of a major English novelist. * Mail on Sunday * Galgut's gifts - of phrasing, of structure, of perception - are on faultless form in these pages... Arctic Summer is a masterpiece. * Sunday Business Post * How apt that Arctic Summer, a chronicle of a writer's longest journey to complete his masterpiece, also happens to be Galgut's finest book to date. * The Herald (Scotland) * Preoccupied by varieties of sadness - but is so crisply written, with a deceptive simplicity and directness, that it feels full of affirmations -- Summer picks * Guardian * His [E M Forster's] plight is beautifully captured by Damon Galgut in this plangent novel, rich in period detail... Forster springs four-square from the page. * Books of the Year, Daily Mail * With insight and seemingly effortless fluidity, Damon Galgut has written a beautiful and funny book that movingly captures the duality of E.M. Forster, one of Britain's most thoughtful novelists. * The Economist, Books of the Year * A compelling account of Forster's writing and of his sexual preoccupations and longings. * Observer * [A] perfectly judged and sensitively written novel * Scotland on Sunday *

Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was seventeen. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry, The Good Doctor, The Impostor and In A Strange Room. The Good Doctor was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award, The Impostor was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and In a Strange Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2021 The Promise won the Booker Prize. He lives in Cape Town.