The Promise
A Novel (Booker Prize Winner)

The Promise is hard and dark and in Damon Galgut there is no trace of sentimentality. Death in the family… Funeral rites… The last journey… And as they drive away, Rachel’s body is already being lifted into its final container and the lid screwed down. For ever. The shomer is in attendance and when th......more

Less “Four Wedding and A Funeral” than “Four Funerals and A Partheid” A book that simply did not work for me despite two readings and whose choice as winner of the 2021 Booker Prize (together with the decision to represent Africa on the longlist by two white South Africans) was the literary lowlight......more

Damon Galgut's brilliant 2014 novel “Arctic Summer” was a fictional reimagining of the life of EM Forster which describes his experiences after the publication of his novel “Howard's End”. Forster's classic book about who will inherit a house serves as the structure for Galgut's new novel “The Promi......more

The Promise chronicles the demise over several decades of the Swart family, white South Africans who are descendants of the Voortrekkers. The youngest daughter, Amor, witnesses her father’s promise to bequeath a small homestead to the Black family who lives on the Swarts’ land. The promise goes unfu......more

This novel was a first-rate reading experience. Damon Galgut accomplished several things I have come to demand as a picky reader. First of all, it’s skillfully written. Any book that’s going to achieve five star status absolutely has to meet this requirement! Beyond that, there’s a compelling plot,......more