The book is structured around four funerals over four decades, as the Swart family dwindles, and as the effect of 'the promise' - and the lack of its fulfillment - is felt. Or at least, that's how Rachel's daughter, Amor, recalls it - because the book never makes it clear whether her father makes the promise. The promise of Galgut's novel is extracted by Rachel Swart from her Afrikaner husband as she lies dying, to give the broken-down house on their property to their housekeeper, Salome - who has cared for her in her final illness. ( Supplied: David Parry/PA Wire) Four funerals and a promise Galgut follows in the footsteps of previous South African winners Nadine Gordimer (1974) and J. No One Is Talking About This by Patricia LockwoodĬhair of the judging panel Maya Jasanoff described The Promise as 'a book that is a real master of form, and pushes the form in new ways, that has an incredible originality and fluidity of voice - and a book that's really dense with historical and metaphorical significance'.The 57-year-old, who has been shortlisted twice previously, won the 50,000-pound ($91,783) prize against a shortlist that included Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers (Bewilderment The Overstory), and which was notably young - with four of the six authors 40 years old or younger. South African novelist and playwright Damon Galgut has won the Booker Prize for his novel The Promise, a multi-generational, multi-voice saga set in Pretoria, that starts in 1986 with a promise made by a white South African family to their black housekeeper - and follows the fallout of this moment across 40 years.

The promise booker prize