![]() ![]() I suppose I’ve internalised a lot of self-dislike – self-doubt, maybe, is a better way to put it.” Edward Morgan Forsterįorster also hid and assumed a fake persona, all the more tragic that the persona he chose to hide behind was an imitation of the same persona all the men around him hid behind as well: English, literary, controlled, stiff-upper-lip, and straight, if only in that English way of not seeming to be interested in marriage. That sense of concealment has stayed with me, even now. I learned, like quite a lot of gay men do, to hide and to assume fake personas. ![]() To be gay growing up in Pretoria in the 1960s – it would be hard to overstate what a terribly suffocating oppressive place it was. The whole system of apartheid was extremely patriarchal all its values were skewed in that direction. “At the time I grew up in South Africa,” said Galgut in a recent interview, “it was illegal to be gay. ![]() Forster’s life, his early career, his success with Howard’s End, his long roaming interlude that finally brought him to A Passage to India, but most importantly, his grappling with his homosexuality. ![]() Damon Galgut, when he is not travelling, lives in Cape Town, South Africa, is 52, and an openly gay man – which begs the question, why mention it? I mention it in relation to his latest book, Arctic Summer, which is a fictionalised account of the middle years – the early 20th century – of E.M. ![]()
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