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.

"A book full of wonder" - * Sunday Times *

"Moving, mesmerizing, and wonderful" - * The Economist *

"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" - * Daily Telegraph *

"An intense and lyrical portrait of the slowly changing polar seasons . . . shines with a clarity and lyricism descended from Thoreau" - * Times Literary Supplement *

"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" - * Literary Review *

"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" - * RSL Ondaatje Prize Judges *