Galgut was a favorite of British bookmakers for winning the £50,000 ($69,000) prize, with its story of a troubled Afrikaner family and its broken promise to a black employee – a story that depicts larger themes in South Africa’s transition from apartheid to Is.
Galgut took the prize for his third time as a finalist, for a book the judges called a “tour de force”. He was previously shortlisted for ‘The Good Doctor’ in 2003 and ‘In a Strange Room’ in 2010, but lost both times.
Despite his status as a favourite, Galgut said he was “shocked” at the win.
Galgut said he was accepting the award “on behalf of all the stories and untold stories that writers have heard and unheard, from the remarkable continent of which I am a part”.
“Please keep listening to us—more to come,” he said.
Historian Maya Jasnoff, who chaired the judging panel, said that ‘The Promise’ is a deep, powerful and concise book that “brings together an extraordinary story, rich themes – the history of the past 40 years in South Africa – in an incredibly well manner”. Combines. – Wrought package.”
Galgut’s ninth novel traces members of the Swart family – the word is black for Afrikaans – haunted by an unintentional promise to give their home to their black maid, Salome. The book is structured around a series of funerals over several decades; Galgut has said that he wants readers to fill the narrative gaps themselves.
He is the third South African novelist to win the Booker Prize, after Nadine Gordimer in 1974 and JM Coetzee, who won twice in 1983 and 1999.
‘The Promise’ was chosen among five other novels by three American authors: Richard Powers’ ‘Bewildrement’, the story of an astrologer trying to care for his neurodivergent son; Patricia Lockwood’s social media novel No One Is Talking About This and Maggie Shipstead’s aviator saga “Great Circle”.
Other finalists were Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam’s post-war story A Passage North and British/Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men, a Somali man falsely accused of murder in 1950s Wales.
Jasnoff said that many of the shortlisted novels, including Galgut, depict the relationship between the past and the present.
“It’s a book that’s a lot about legacy and legacy,” she said of the winner. “It’s about change over a period of decades. And I think it’s a book that invites reflection from decades past and invites re-reading and pays off.”
Established in 1969, the Booker Prize has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers and was originally open to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers. In 2014 the eligibility was expanded to all English novels published in the UK.
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The jury won his list out of 158 novels submitted by the publishers. Only one British author, Mohamed, made it to the final six, a fact that has restarted debate in Britain about whether the prize is becoming US-dominated.
Last year also the only British author Douglas Stuart of Scotland was on the list dominated by the US in the final. He won the award for ‘Shuggy Bane’, a gritty and lyrical novel about a boy of age in 1980s Glasgow.
For a second year in a row, the coronavirus pandemic has thwarted the awards’ usual black-tie dinner ceremony at London’s medieval Guildhall. The winner was announced at a ceremony broadcast live on BBC radio and television.
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