Over the next 300 pages, we see through – and into – the minds and lives of these characters as they navigate their dwindling family numbers. Amor, 13, is brought home from boarding school, Anton, 19, from his military service and Astrid, 17, still lives at home. The three children, together with their father, Manie, join to contemplate their new reality.

The mother, Rachel, has died after a long battle with cancer and the family gathers for her funeral. The novel opens in 1986 – apartheid is failing, and South Africa is a country at war, but the Swarts, in their entitlement, do not dwell on problems outside their control.

The story of the Swarts is split into four parts, built around four funerals, and stretches forty years through arguably South Africa’s most tumultuous period. Her commendation doesn’t fall flat – Galgut’s latest novel, The Promise (2021), follows on from his earlier successes ( The Good Doctor, 2003 The Impostor, 2008 In a Strange Room, 2010) while showing intrinsic growth for the author – returning to his South African roots, but with a refreshing style and voice. Winner of The Booker Prize 2021, the novel follows the lives of the (ironically named) Swart family descendants of the Voortrekker Afrikaners ‘farmers’ on the Highveld through the end of apartheid, the Mandela era, all the way up to 2018. “A surprising number of writers are very good few are extraordinary … Damon Galgut is of this rare company” writes Claire Messud for Harper’s.

Damon galgut the promise review