The Promise

I picked up this book because of its haunting cover—a black-and-white photograph of a girl staring directly into the camera’s lens. From the very first line, I knew I’d encountered something special. Without giving too much away, this book follows a South African family—the Swarts—throughout their lives. What most stuck with me was Galgut’s narration: a slippery voice that fluidly moves between the first and third person. This novel is a masterclass in narrative deftness and possibility. I can’t recommend it highly enough.  

I loved the book because of its subject: the shifting sands of race relations in modern-day South Africa. The book tells a story of ruin—of a white family—spanning over three decades. I loved the book because it was crafted with love and very precise in its narrative. 

In truth, I bought this one (yes, I bought all my books in actual paper form) because it won the Booker Prize in 2021. Not all reviews back home in sunny old SA were favorable, but hey, surely it had to have something special. And turns out it does.

Reading it will be a tortured journey for just about any South African: the basic plot, if there is one, is about the promise made by a dying (white) woman to her (black) domestic worker, about the shack in which the latter lives. Of course, the promise is broken again and… show more.

If The Promise wasn’t the winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, I probably wouldn’t have read past the first chapter because the author shifts point of view willy-nilly from one character to another in a very confusing manner.

This doesn’t sound like I loved it but once I became accustomed to the shifts, I was completely absorbed by the mess of a family at its heart—a white South African family in the late 20th and early 21st century—and learned a lot about South Africa.

It’s the story of a broken promise to the woman who has worked for them for… show more.

This modern masterpiece captures the spirit and drama of post-apartheid South Africa through the eyes of an Afrikaner family residing on a farm outside Pretoria.

Having lived through this period of my country’s history, it is remarkable to see how perceptively Galgut has managed to convey the spirit of our time and the trauma that lingers in this troubled corner of Africa.