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Ultrarunning, prison, surviving Aids ... the best tales of endurance

From Shackleton in the Antarctic to Edmund White on the Aids crisis, Emily Chappell rounds up stories of survival

“I can’t go on, I’ll go on,” is the weary conclusion of Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable, a sentiment that, whether or not Beckett intended it, captures the inherent tension in acts of endurance. Whether that is cycling nearly 4,000 miles across Europe in less than a fortnight, or journeying through life itself, it can sometimes seem impossible or unbearable for mind, body and spirit to continue, and yet somehow they keep going, always fearing that the seemingly impossible may indeed prove to be so.

Failure was at the heart of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition to Antarctica, his ship Endurance crushed by pack ice. The journey, as recounted in his book South, was remarkable not only because the entire 28-man crew survived their estrangement from the world for 22 months, but also for the relative good humour Shackleton reports.

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