The Promise (Galgut novel)
.png) First edition cover (Umuzi, 2021) | |
| Author | Damon Galgut |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Family saga |
| Set in | South Africa |
| Publisher | Umuzi |
Publication date | May 2021 |
| Publication place | South Africa |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Awards | Booker Prize (2021) |
| ISBN | 978-1-4152-1058-1 (First edition paperback) |
The Promise is a 2021 novel by South African novelist Damon Galgut, published in May 2021, by Umuzi, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa.[1] It was published by Europa Editions in the US[2] and by Chatto & Windus in the UK.[3][4]
The novel was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize, making Galgut the third South African to win the Prize.
Plot
The Promise is a family saga spanning four decades,[5] each of which features a death in the family. It concerns the Afrikaner Swarts family and their farm located outside Pretoria. The family consists of Manie, his wife Rachel, and their children Anton, Astrid and Amor. The titular promise in the novel is Rachel's dying wish, in 1986, that their Black domestic servant, Salome, be given ownership of a house on the family's property.[6] This promise, overheard by a young Amor, is made by Manie but not fulfilled. After nearly a decade, the siblings reunite at the family farm after their father suffers a fatal snakebite. Anton inherits the house and assures Amor he will follow through on the promise, but does not do so. Another decade passes, and tension grows between the siblings as Astrid and Anton resist Amor's appeals to honour the promise and legally transfer the property to Salome, who now lives in it.[7]
Style and themes
Galgut's modernist style and narration have been compared to the tradition of William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.[8][9][10] Jon Day of The Guardian characterised the novel's narrator as occupying "an indistinct space, halfway between first and third person, drifting from tight focus on a single character to a more piercing, detached view, often within a single paragraph. There's plenty of free indirect discourse, and sections written in something approaching Joycean stream of consciousness."[10]
The moral failings of the Swarts family has been interpreted as being an allegory for post-apartheid South Africa, and the promise of white South Africans to black South Africans.[11][12] Jon Day wrote that "the potential, or expectation – of the next generation of South Africans, and of the nation itself, is shown to be just as compromised as that of their parents."[10]
Reception
The Promise was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize.[13] Galgut is the third writer from South Africa to win the Booker, following Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee, who has won twice. Galgut was previously shortlisted twice for the Prize: first in 2003 for The Good Doctor and again in 2010 for In a Strange Room.[14]
The Promise received favourable reviews, with a cumulative "Rave" rating at the review aggregator website Book Marks, based on 11 book reviews from mainstream literary critics.[15] In a rave review for Harper's Magazine, Claire Messud called Galgut an "extraordinary" novelist, writing, "Like other remarkable novels, it is uniquely itself, and greater than the sum of its parts. The Promise evokes, when you reach the final page, a profound interior shift that is all but physical. This, as an experience of art, happens only rarely, and is to be prized."[8] James Wood of The New Yorker praised Galgut's narration, writing, "Galgut is at once very close to his troubled characters and somewhat ironically distant, as if the novel were written in two time signatures, fast and slower. And, miraculously, this narrative distance does not alienate our intimacy but emerges as a different form of knowing."[9]
References
- ^ "The Promise by Galgut, Damon". Penguin Random House South Africa. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ "The Promise - Damon Galgut". Europa Editions. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ "The Promise". Penguin Books. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ Chandler, Mark (18 March 2021). "Galgut moves to Chatto for new novel". The Bookseller. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ Perry, Paul (25 July 2021). "Damon Galgut's The Promise is a masterpiece of guile and empathy". Irish Independent. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ "The Promise by Damon Galgut". Kirkus Reviews. 3 March 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ "Fiction Book Review: The Promise by Damon Galgut. Europa, $25 (272p) ISBN 978-1-60945-658-0". Publishers Weekly. 5 February 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ a b Messud, Claire (April 2021). "New Books". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ a b Wood, James (12 April 2021). "A Family at Odds Reveals a Nation in the Throes". The New Yorker. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ a b c Day, Jon (18 June 2021). "The Promise by Damon Galgut review – legacies of apartheid". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ Krishnan, Nikhil (14 September 2021). "Booker Prize shortlist 2021: The Promise by Damon Galgut review – a peculiar apartheid allegory". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ Levitin, Mia (4 July 2021). "The Promise by Damon Galgut: Is the Booker calling for the South African great?". The Irish Times. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ Flood, Alison (3 November 2021). "Damon Galgut wins Booker prize with 'spectacular' novel The Promise". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
- ^ Alter, Alexandra (3 November 2021). "Damon Galgut Wins Booker Prize for 'The Promise'". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
- ^ "Book Marks reviews of The Promise by Damon Galgut". Book Marks. Retrieved 25 September 2021.