Which Damon Galgut novel won the 2021 Booker Prize?

The Damon Galgut novel that won the 2021 Booker Prize was *The Promise*.

The novel follows the Swart family, a white South African family living on a farm outside Pretoria, across several decades. Its structure is built around four funerals, using successive family crises to examine private loyalties alongside the country’s transition out of apartheid.

At the heart of the story is the promise made to Salome, a Black woman who has worked for the family for years. She was promised her own house and land, but the family repeatedly fails to honour that commitment. The unfulfilled promise becomes a powerful symbol of South Africa’s unresolved history.

Galgut had previously been shortlisted for *The Good Doctor* in 2003 and *In a Strange Room* in 2010, so the 2021 victory was his third shortlist appearance. That history can cause confusion: those earlier novels were recognised by the Booker, but *The Promise* was the winner.