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

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

A dazzling feat of kaleidoscopic storytelling ? The Times, Books of the Year

Layered, clever...with a gripping story ? Claire Fuller, Daily Mail, Books of the Year
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 Discover the powerful prizewinning story of a family in crisis. 'Astonishing' Colm Tóibín 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.
DAMON GALGUT is the author of nine novels. He won the Booker Prize 2021 for The Promise, having been shortlisted for the prize twice before (The Good Doctor and In A Strange Room). He lives and works in Cape Town.