South African author and playwright Damon Galgut won the Booker Prize on Wednesday for his novel “The Promise”, about a white family’s failed commitment to give their domestic helper her own home.
It was Galgut’s third nomination for the 50 000 pounds (just over R1 million) English language literary award.
Galgut says: “It’s taken a long while to get here, and now that I have, I kind of feel that I shouldn’t be here, this could just as easily have gone to any of the other amazing talented people on this list and a few others who aren’t. But seeing as the good fortune has fallen to me, let me say this has been a great year for African writing, and I would like to accept this on behalf of all the stories told and untold. The writers heard and unheard from the remarkable continent that I’m part of. Please keep listening to us. There’s a lot more to come.”
The novel is set in the mid-1980s and takes place just outside Pretoria.
Galgut, who wrote his first novel at the age of 17, follows in the footsteps of past South African Booker Prize winners Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee.
Galgut added that he remains humble: “My thanks to the Booker judges and to everybody connected with this powerful prize. You know, it’s it’s changed my life, and please know that I am really, profoundly, humbly grateful for this. Thank you.”
He has been nominated for the Booker Prize twice before: in 2003 for “The Good Doctor” and in 2010 for “In a Strange Room”.
