(3 minutes read)
- South African playwright and novelist Damon Galgut (57) won the 2021 Booker Prize
- This was for novel “The Promise”, his third shortlisted novel. The novel depicts a family in his homeland and its history spanning from the late apartheid era through to Jacob Zuma’s presidency
- The central point of the novel is family’s growing disintegration as the country emerges into democracy
South African playwright and novelist Damon Galgut (57) won the 2021 Booker Prize. This was for the novel “The Promise”, his third shortlisted novel. The novel depicts a family in his homeland and its history spanning from the late apartheid era through to Jacob Zuma’s presidency. The central point of the novel is the family’s growing disintegration as the country emerges into democracy.
The Promise is the story of a white family with a farm outside Pretoria — where Galgut grew up. The white South African writer has said he wanted the critically acclaimed novel to show how “the passing of time” impacts a family, a country, its politics and “notions of justice”, while also exploring mortality.
This has been a great year for African writing. Another African writer, 31-year-old Senegalese author Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, had won the Goncourt, France’s top literary prize.
