Empire Antarctica

WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Prize, RSL Ondaatje Prize, Banff Adventure Travel Prize and Saltire Book of the Year Award
Book of the Year for the Financial Times, Sunday Herald, Scotsman
A travel book pick for the Sunday Times and the National Geographic

Gavin Francis spent fourteen months in one of the remotest places in the world: Halley, a research station in Antarctica. Storm-locked and frozen, 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.

In the icy emptiness of Antarctica, where one misstep outdoors can mean death but the confined corridors of Halley can drive you mad, Gavin challenges himself to thrive at the ends of the earth. In the penguin colonies, a species utterly adapted to the harsh environment, he finds community, inspiration and joy.

Gavin Francis is an award-winning writer and GP. He is the author of ten non-fiction books, most recently The Bridge Between Worlds: A Brief History of Connection. His books include Island Dreams, which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2020; Adventures in Human Being, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the Saltire Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award; and Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence, which was a Sunday Times bestseller. He has written for the Guardian, The Times, the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. His work has been translated into twenty languages, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

X: @gavinfranc