The Promise

Winner of The 2021 Booker Prize

I was surprised by how good The Promise was. The story builds around deaths and funerals. The main focus is on a wealthy white family Swart living in South Africa, and we watch their gradual decline throughout the years. The Promise is a unique family saga told in four chapters. These chapters are quite some years apart, but we still get to know the complete family story.

I loved the writing style. There are no quotations, and POV changes and jumps around.   

 

 

Goodreads

Details:

• author: Damon Galgut
  
• full title: The Promise
• genre: literary fiction
• format/type: bookfiction
• topics: #
  
• publisher: Chatto & Windus
  
• publish date: 17.06.2021
  
• pages: 293
  

Literary Prizes:

• Booker Prize (2021), 
• Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2022), 
• Rathbones Folio Prize Nominee for Shortlist (2022)

My Rating of the Book:

• content: 💙💙💙💙💙

  

For she too has her little pains, and they wear her out, though she does not speak of them, or is not asked, and when they show themselves it tends to be when she's alone.

 

He is haggard, he is pale. A handsome young man, brown eyes and brown hair, something in his face that will never be at ease.

Excerpt from the Book:

About the Author:

Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was seventeen. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry, The Good Doctor and The Impostor. The Good Doctor was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. The Imposter was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He lives in Cape Town.