Twice short-listed for the Booker Prize, South African novelist Damon Galgut was at Kings Place last night to promote his book, Arctic Summer, a fictional account of E.M.Forster’s Indian phase, which has been dubbed a “literary masterpiece”. Asked if he hoped to return to playwriting, he replied, “If the National asked me, I’d certainly be interested” — take note Rufus Norris, the National’s incoming artistic director.
Writing plays and novels might be out of fashion now, but Galgut has clearly studied Balzac, master of both. When one of the audience put it to Galgut that the dissipation of sexual energies affected creative impulses, Galgut referred to the French novelist, who, on reaching orgasm, rolled off the lady, remarking: “There goes another novel.”
