Gavin Francis Explained

Gavin Francis (born 1975) is a Scottish physician and a writer on travel and medical matters. He was raised in Fife, Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh as a GP.[1] His books have won many prestigious prizes.

Biography

Born in Fife in 1975, Francis studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and joined the Emergency department at the old Royal Edinburgh Hospital.[2] Having qualified as a physician, Francis spent ten years travelling on all seven continents.[3] Francis spent time working in India and Africa, made several trips to the Arctic, and is said to have crossed Eurasia and Australasia by motorcycle.[4]

Francis was working at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh when he decided to undertake a 15-month position as the resident doctor with the British Antarctic Survey.[5] He arrived at the Halley Research Station in Antarctica via the RRS Ernest Shackleton, a supply ship, on Christmas Eve, 2002, after a two-month voyage.[6]

Writings

Francis's experiences eventually formed the basis for his second book, Empire Antarctica (2012); his first book, True North: Travels in Arctic Europe (2008), detailed his experiences travelling in Arctic Europe from Unst to Svalbard.[7] [8]

His Adventures in Human Being (2015) won the Saltire Society Literary Award for non-fiction and was a British Medical Association (BMA) book of the year.[9] [10] Empire Antarctica was a shortlisted finalist for a number of book awards in 2013, including the Ondaatje Prize and the Saltire Prize, but received its most notable honour in November 2013 at the Lennoxlove Book Festival[11] when it was named the 2013 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust's Scottish Book of the Year.

Francis has been contributing articles and reviews to The Guardian since 2010,[12] the London Review of Books, and the New York Review of Books since 2013.[13] In addition to book reviews, his contributions have occasionally consisted of prose ruminations on medical topics such as stethoscopes and the human brain, an approach that led to his being commissioned by the Wellcome Trust to produce a collection of essays in this style.

His 2020 book Island Dreams was "a simple but sincere cartography of my own obsession with the twinned but opposing allures of island and city, of isolation and connection", and included 90 maps.[14] In 2021 he published Intensive Care: A GP, a community & COVID-19 describing his work in Edinburgh and Orkney during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Selected publications

Books

Translations

Articles

Awards and honours

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Authors: Gavin Francis . Birlinn.co.uk . Birlinn Ltd . 5 February 2014 . 26 October 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171026220353/https://www.birlinn.co.uk/Gavin-Francis/ . dead .
  2. Web site: Ailes . Emma . Ice Man: Edinburgh GP Gavin Francis on his year at the bottom of the world . BBC Scotland . BBC . 24 March 2015.
  3. Web site: Gavin Francis . Vintage Books . The Random House Group . 5 February 2014.
  4. Web site: Meet the Author: Gavin Francis, Empire Antarctica . www.cityofliterature.com/ . Edinburgh City of Literature . 24 March 2015.
  5. Web site: Davidson . Gina . Gavin Francis: Dad, GP, and award-winning author . www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/ . Edinburgh Evening News . 24 March 2015.
  6. Web site: Francis . Gavin . Antarctic Holiday: A Christmas Feast In The Loneliest Spot On Earth . www.npr.org/ . NPR . 24 March 2015.
  7. News: Massie . Allan . Book review: Intensive Care, by Gavin Francis . 11 February 2021 . The Scotsman . 4 January 2021 . en.
  8. Web site: Wheeler . Sara . The Iceman Cometh . www.spectator.co.uk . The Spectator . 24 March 2015.
  9. London Review of Books, Vol. 39 No. 21 (2 November 2017), pp. 21–22 Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  10. Web site: 2015 Saltire Society Literary Awards Winners . . 8 October 2020.
  11. Web site: Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards . www.lennoxlovebookfestival.com/ . Lennoxlove Book Festival . 24 March 2015.
  12. Web site: Author Profile: Gavin Francis . www.theguardian.com . The Guardian . 24 March 2015.
  13. Web site: Contributors: Gavin Francis . www.lrb.co.uk . London Review of Books . 24 March 2015.
  14. News: Henderson . Caspar . Island Dreams by Gavin Francis; I Am an Island by Tamsin Calidas – review . 11 February 2021 . The Guardian . 21 November 2020 . en.
  15. Web site: Empire Antarctica named Scottish Book of the Year . BBC Scotland . BBC . 24 March 2015.
  16. Web site: Flood . Alison . Zadie Smith gains third literary honour this week . www.theguardian.com . The Guardian . 24 March 2015.
  17. Web site: Saltire Scottish Book Awards 2013 winners . www.publishingscotland.org/ . Publishing Scotland . 24 March 2015.
  18. Web site: Copping . Jasper . Costa Book Awards 2013: shortlists revealed . www.telegraph.co.uk/ . The Telegraph . 24 March 2015.
  19. Web site: 2013 BANFF MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL BOOK COMPETITION WINNERS . www.banffcentre.ca . The Banff Centre . 24 March 2015.
  20. News: Creamer . Ella . 2023-07-12 . Royal Society of Literature aims to broaden representation as it announces 62 new fellows . en-GB . The Guardian . 2023-07-13 . 0261-3077.

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