“This bravura novel about the undoing of a bigoted South African family during apartheid deserves awards.”- The Guardian A reader can shrug it all off and focus on the family’s story, or take pleasure in a brash writer’s narrative norm-breaking… In comparison, Galgut is a gleeful satirist, mordantly skewering his characters’ fecklessness and hypocrisy.”- Rand Richards Cooper, The New York Times Book Review “ The Promise offers all the virtues of realist fiction, plus some extras.

And on this vastness, he stages intimate dramas that have the force of ancient myth.”- Anna Mundow, Wall Street Journal Galgut’s fiction, South Africa materializes, vast, astonishing, resonant. Galgut is wonderfully, Woolfianly adept.”- James Wood, The New Yorker

“Galgut’s novel most closely resembles the work of predecessors like Woolf and Faulkner. The novel’s beautifully peculiar narration aerates and complicates this fatal family fable, and turns plot into deep meditation. Simply: you must read it.”- Claire Messud, Harper’s Magazine To praise the novel in its particulars-for its seriousness for its balance of formal freedom and elegance for its humor, its precision, its human truth-seems inadequate and partial. “The novel carries within it the literary spirits of Woolf and Joyce. ★ “Galgut’s compelling new novel blends characters and history and intricate themes to reveal the devastating impacts of white privilege and institutional racism… The Promise is timely, relevant, and thematically significant.”- Booklist (Starred Review) ★ “This tour-de-force unleashes a searing portrait of a damaged family and a troubled country in need of healing.”- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) ★ “Galgut extends his extraordinary corpus with a rich story of family, history, and grief.”- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) “Simply: you must read it.”-Claire Messud, Harper’s Magazine Review

The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of national history, sure to please current fans and attract many new ones. Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country-one of resentment, renewal, and, ultimately, hope.

Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential Astrid, whose beauty is her power and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt. Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Publisher ‏ : ‎ Europa Editions (April 6, 2021)Ī modern family saga written in gorgeous prose by three-time Booker Prize-shortlisted author Damon Galgut.

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