Morgan among the Minorities: Damon Galgut's Arctic Summer as Biofiction

Abstract

In this analysis, I will contextualize Galgut’s representation of Forster within the larger biographical tradition which has re-read the latter’s work and life through different angles, including homosexuality. In this larger framework, I will attempt to define the notion of “biofiction” so that one may gain insight into the unicity of Galgut’s portrait. We shall see that the author felt free to negotiate between numerous eclectic sources, by Forster and on Forster, and to make them interact creatively. The third chapter will be complementary to the second as I will examine the implications of Galgut’s narrative techniques. Then, I will discuss the theme of cross-class and interracial homoerotic friendship, which enables the author to reclaim, from a postcolonial angle, Forster’s “quiet resistance” and his anti-imperialist view. In the last part of the analysis, I shall look at the novel’s intertextuality and self-reflexivity, which also contribute to the process of fictionalization characterizing the whole biography. This last chapter will focus on Galgut’s references to Forster’s *A Passage to India*, which make possible a re-interpretation of that novel.