Arctic Summer

In 1912, the SS Birmingham approaches India. On board is Morgan Forster, novelist and man of letters, who is embarking on a journey of discovery. As Morgan stands on deck, the seeds of a story start to gather at the corner of his mind: a sense of impending menace, lust in close confines, under a hot, empty sky. It will be another twelve years, and a second, and much longer time spent in India, before A Passage to India , E.M. Forster's most beloved work of literature, is completed. During these years, Morgan will come to a recognition of his homosexuality and of the infinite subtleties and complexities of human nature.

Arctic Summer is an intimate portrait of the man who became one of the world’s most celebrated novelists. It is also an evocation of the mysterious alchemy of life, art, and the creative process. From the vividly described years in India—a country that liberated Forster’s imagination and brought him closer to the complicated desires that would create one of the great struggles of his life—to the realities of repressive London society during an exciting literary moment, Galgut brilliantly animates the times in which Forster lived, including encounters with some of the great writers of the day, such as Virginia and Leonard Woolf and D.H. Lawrence. With nuance and insight, Galgut movingly charts the unexpected course of Forster's two closest personal relationships, enduring and unfulfilled.

Arctic Summer is a literary tour de force of depth, subtlety, and power. It is Damon Galgut’s most thrilling and accomplished novel to date.