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The Promise

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

** WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 **

This audiobook includes bonus content of Damon Galgut in conversation with Ted Hodgkinson, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre.

There is nothing unusual or remarkable about the Swart family, oh no, they resemble the family from the next farm and the one beyond that, just an ordinary bunch of white South Africans, and if you don't believe it then listen to us speak ...

The many voices of The Promise tell a story in four snapshots, each one centered on a family funeral, each one happening in a different decade. In the background, a different president is in power, and a different spirit hangs over the country, while in the foreground the family fights over what they call their farm, on a worthless piece of land outside Pretoria.

Over large jumps in time, people get older, faces and laws and lives all change, while a brother and sister circle around a promise made long ago, and never kept ...

'Astonishing' Colm Tóibín

'Gorgeous and pleasurable' Tessa Hadley

'The most important book of the last ten years' Edmund White

© Damon Galgut 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

A superb novel; a nuanced, sad, hilarious portrait of a family and a country
PAULA HAWKINS
This story was so powerful, the writing so strong and supple... What an achievement
CLARE CHAMBERS
A moving, brilliantly told family epic . . . darkly comic . . . phenomenally good
ELIZABETH DAY
Layered, clever...with a gripping story
Daily Mail, Books of the Year
A brilliant book told over four decades and four funerals . . . These are characters dancing on the edge of ruin . . . Intoxicating
ANNA HOPE
Astonishing . . . about fate and loss, about three siblings and land, a promise made a broken
COLM TOIBIN
A remarkable tale of four generations of one South African family and of the country itself... No wonder it won the Booker
Observer, Books of the Year
Vivid and suggestive, moving and often very funny
Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
Outstanding . . . Gripping . . . There is also plenty of unexpected comedy
BBC News
Brilliant... Rarely have I had such a strong sense, while reading a novel, that I myself was there, in the room with the characters
Financial Times
Author Damon Galgut
Narrator Peter Noble
Duration 10 hours and 12 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781473593077
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Family life fiction, Generational sagas, Historical fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Sense of place
Availability AU, GB, IE

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