Review | Damon Galgut’s Booker Prize-winning The Promise, about the downfall of a white South African family, is a novel of mesmerising skill

Galgut’s ninth novel, and the third to make the Booker Prize shortlist, charts the downfall of a white South African family, starting in the apartheid era

The narrative passes from character to character, creating a beguilingly chaotic relay of voices that tell a story of injustice stretching over 30 years

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South African author Damon Galgut, winner of the 2021 Booker Prize for Fiction, at the awards ceremony at the BBC Radio Theatre in London on November 3. The annual prize, for the best original novel, written in the English language and published in the UK, was awarded for his book The Promise. Phoyoz; EPA-EFE/David Parry/PA Wire /The Booker Prize Press Office.

Bernard Cohen

Published: 11:06am, 4 Nov 2021Updated: 11:15pm, 4 Nov 2021

The Promise by Damon Galgut, pub. Chatto & Windus

Damon Galgut has won the 2021 Booker Prize for the best English-language novel published in Great Britain. His remarkable and brilliant novel The Promise tracks the downfall of a white South African family over 30 years, set against South African history from the last years of apartheid.

The Promise is Galgut’s ninth novel, and his third to have been shortlisted for the £50,000 (HK$533,000) prize since his first work was published when he was 17. (Galgut has previously said that his love of books stemmed from relatives reading to him during his treatment for lymphoma as a child.)

Accepting the prize, Galgut said: “Let me say this has been a great year for African writing, and I’d like to accept this on behalf of all the stories told and untold, the writers heard and unheard, from the remarkable continent I’m part of. Please keep listening to us, there’s a lot more to come.”

Damon Galgut at the 2021 Booker Prize Awards Ceremony. “This has been a great year for African writing,” he said. Photo: EPA-EFE/David Parry/PA Wire /The Booker Prize Press Office

The Promise is in four sections, named for four of five Swart family members, Ma (Rachel), Pa (Manie), Astrid and Anton, each paralleling moments in South African history: President P.W. Botha’s state of emergency in the mid-1980s; President Mandela at the 1995 Rugby World Cup; the 1999 inauguration of Thabo Mbeki as president, and the resignation of Jacob Zuma as head of state in 2018.