We are thrilled to welcome Damon Galgut back to Dublin to discuss his writing and his Booker Prize-winning novel The Promise!

As a literary form, the novel has a unique capacity to capture the realities of life. The things we shouldn’t forget. A good novelist understands this. A great novelist takes this knowledge and uses the form to do something unexpected. Damon Galgut was praised by the Booker Prize judges for exactly this feat in 2021 when The Promise was awarded the prestigious prize. Set on a farm on the outskirts of Pretoria, and focusing on a seemingly ordinary family in crisis, Galgut’s novel asks relentless questions of the past and the present, and of the ways in which we deny ourselves and each other when confronted with truth.

Damon Galgut is a South African author, based in Capetown. The author of nine novels, he was twice nominated for the Booker Prize before winning it in 2021 for The Promise.

The Price of Privilege: Damon Galgut