promise

The Promise

★Won the Man Booker Prize, a highly respected award in English literature, sparking a wave of literary reading that de-Eurocentric narratives. The 2021 Booker Prize judges praised The Promise as "a masterpiece" and "a testament to the flourishing of the 21st-century novel" for its exquisite writing and profound humanistic concern, and therefore awarded it the Booker Prize. Simultaneously, author Damon Galget, along with that year's International Booker Prize winner David Diop and Nobel Prize winner Abdelrazak Gourna, has shifted the focus of international publishers, critics, and readers to literary narratives outside of Europe, forming a powerful force in African literature.
★Became famous at a young age, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, and is the most dazzling South African writer after Coetzee!
Damon Galgett is a famous South African novelist and playwright. He wrote his debut novel at the age of 17, has been nominated for many literary awards, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. He finally won the 2021 Booker Prize for "The Promise", becoming the third South African writer to win this honor after Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee. He is a contemporary English literary writer that cannot be missed.
★ Voices surge like waves, perspectives shift like cameras—a contemporary legacy of modern literature and art. "The Promise" perfectly inherits and transforms modernist narrative techniques. Its writing is eloquent and delicate, and its perspective shifts freely between characters and animals. This is a breathtakingly cinematic, multi-voiced novel. The Booker Prize jury and literary critics have even compared Galgett to modern literary masters such as Woolf and Faulkner.
★“They gathered around you and treated you like a flower. Now they are all dead, and only you are alive.”
Amor, invisible among relatives, a wanderer in love, a guardian in the hospital ward, and the embodiment of all love. All the ties of the world, all the entanglements within the family, are told in these four funerals and the desolate story of one family.
From the fate of a family to the future of a nation, from a promise to historical justice: the only issues we still need to resolve are those that remain for the living.
From 1986 to 2018, the Swat family declined, the situation in South Africa was unpredictable, and individuals and the country moved slowly forward amidst the burden of history and the fog of reality. A question lingered in people's minds - can you escape the consequences of breaking your promise?
★Recommended by famous writers such as Colm Toibin and James Wood This story has a surprising depth, as if the characters were imagined over time with slow, gentle care.
—Colm Tobing Galgett’s novel is most similar to the work of predecessors like Woolf and Faulkner in that it reclaims some modernist techniques, particularly the use of a free-floating narrator.
——James Wood★Selected as recommended reading to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne. To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne, in April 2022, a committee composed of experts selected 70 novels to recommend to the public for reading. "The Promise" was selected along with "Midnight's Children", "The Handmaid's Tale", "The Remains of the Day", "The English Patient", "The God of Small Things" and other works.
★ Internationally acclaimed, this novel has been shared by readers in over 30 countries. Named the best book of 2021 by leading European and American publications, including The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, and The New Statesman. With translation rights sold to over 30 countries, it has become a phenomenal literary novel with international influence!
★The cutting-edge designer Shanchuan is responsible for the binding design. The elegant and portable hardcover small format features a misty blue outer cover with artistic pictures, a dark blue inner cover with hot silver craftsmanship, and elegant bright blue front and back linings, showing a contemporary classic temperament; the 110*185 slender small format is suitable for carrying and reading.
【Media Recommendation】
"The Promise" is a rich family novel that explores the interconnected relationships between one family through the lens of a series of funerals. Death here serves as both an ending and a beginning to life. This unusual narrative style, balancing Faulknerian energy with Nabokovian precision, pushes boundaries and stands as a testament to the flourishing of the 21st-century novel. In "The Promise," Damon Galgett offers a powerful and clear commentary on South African history and the history of humanity itself, best summed up by the question: Is there true justice in this world?
—Chigoshi Obioma (2021 Booker Prize judge)
The book is akin to a folk tale or a retelling of a myth, about fate and loss, three siblings and the land, and the making and breaking of a promise. The story has a surprising depth, as if its characters were imagined over time, with slow, tender care.
—Colm Tobin Damon Galgett’s brilliant new novel, The Promises, shows that the demands of history and the novel’s response can still be powerfully integrated… Galgett’s novel is most similar to the work of predecessors like Woolf and Faulkner in that it reclaims some modernist techniques, notably the use of a free-floating narrator.
—James Wood "With its imaginative brilliance, ironic disillusionment, and relentless exploration of human nature, The Promise evokes the great achievements of modernism. For formal innovation and moral seriousness, Damon Galgett has few equals. He is an indispensable writer."
—Garth Greenwell The Promises is a beautiful and delightful novel, richly imaginative and comparable to Galgett’s South African predecessors, Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee, and André Brink.
—Tessa Hadley The Promise is the most important book of the past decade.
—Edmund White Galgett's prose undulates like the waves of the ocean, his perspective shifting within paragraphs and even mid-sentence. The novel's cinematic present-tense narration and kaleidoscopic perspectives piece together what everyone in a room is thinking at a given moment... In The Promise, Galgett is a cheerful satirist, sharply lampooning the weaknesses and hypocrisies of his characters.
—The New York Times Book Review
The novel bears the literary spirit of Woolf and Joyce, including Woolf's swift, fluid narrative and Galgett's direct homage to The Dead in its final pages... To praise the novel's details (its seriousness, its balance of formal freedom and grace, its humor, its precision, its truths about human nature) seems inadequate and partial. Simply put: you must read it.
—Harper's Magazine
This masterpiece is a poignant portrait of a broken family and a nation in desperate need of healing.
—Publishers Weekly
This is easily one of the best novels of the year.
—The Times
【Content Introduction】
"Apartheid has fallen,
You see, now we are so close to each other, so close that we will die together.
The only issues we still have to deal with are those that remain for the living.”

Four funerals, over thirty years, two races, one promise.
In the spring of 1986, Mom.
In the winter of 1995, Dad.
Astrid, Autumn 2004.
Summer 2018, Anton.
About every ten years, members of the Swat family gather to hold a funeral for another deceased relative.
Seasons change, situations shift, but desire, prejudice, and a long-unfulfilled promise continue to loom over their lives.
The novel tells the fate and future of a family and a country with a vivid perspective like a movie camera and words that rise and fall like the waves.

2022-11-01

广西师范大学出版社

448

9787559853189