Winner of the 2021 Booker Prize - A Reader's Review
This one felt a bit personal to me, having just moved back from 8 years living in Cape Town. I love Damon Galgut and I've read a few of his books, and he's from Cape Town, so I hope he wins (yay, he won!). It's undeniably well written and the characters buzz, and even amuse, but it's South Africa at its dismal apartheid and post-apartheid bleakness..South Africa as much of the rest of the world see it. Much of which is even, sadly, undeniably accurate, but at the same time not accurate...or at least there's much more to it when you live there and know it. What I'm trying to say I guess is that I loved it, but it also made me feel sad, and somewhat homesick to see South Africa through foreigners' eyes again now I'm no longer there. - Tanya Carus
One family. One promise. One chance to tell a new story.
'A moving, brilliantly told family epic' Elizabeth Day
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
On a farm outside Pretoria, the Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for - not least their treatment of the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. Salome was to be given her own house, her own land...yet somehow, that vow is carefully ignored.
As each decade passes, and the family assemble again, one question hovers over them. Can you ever escape the repercussions of a broken promise?
'A tour de force... A spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh' Booker Judges, 2021
