Set during four funerals across four decades, Galgut’s panoramic study of one white South African family’s tribulations foregrounds the intimately personal in the epic narrative of a rapidly changing nation.
Winner of the Booker Prize 2021
Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2022
A masterpiece of a family in crisis from twice Booker-shortlisted author Damon Galgut
The Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.
The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title.
In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781529113877
Number of pages: 304
Weight: 222 g
Dimensions: 197 x 130 x 18 mm
A superb novel; a nuanced, sad, hilarious portrait of a family and a country - PAULA HAWKINS
This story was so powerful, the writing so strong and supple... What an achievement - CLARE CHAMBERS
A moving, brilliantly told family epic . . . darkly comic . . . phenomenally good - ELIZABETH DAY
Layered, clever...with a gripping story - CLAIRE FULLER, Daily Mail, Books of the Year
A brilliant book told over four decades and four funerals . . . These are characters dancing on the edge of ruin . . . Intoxicating - ANNA HOPE
Astonishing . . . about fate and loss, about three siblings and land, a promise made a broken - COLM TOIBIN
A remarkable tale of four generations of one South African family and of the country itself... No wonder it won the Booker - Observer, Books of the Year
Vivid and suggestive, moving and often very funny - Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
Outstanding . . . Gripping . . . There is also plenty of unexpected comedy - BBC News
Brilliant... Rarely have I had such a strong sense, while reading a novel, that I myself was there, in the room with the characters - Financial Times
The Promise’ stretches from the 1980s to the present day and so covers some incredibly important decades in the history of South Africa. And yet, whilst there is mention of Mandela, of truth and reconciliation, of... More
I am so pleased this magnificent novel triumphed in this year's Booker Prize! It really is a brilliantly constructed book which speaks so powerfully about a wide range of issues from toxic family battles to... More
This is a stunning novel and a great read, unless perhaps you are a white South African who is disinclined to support majority rule and thinks your heritage has been stolen! The narrative is centred round the deaths... More
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