London (AP) – South African author Damon Galgate has won the prestigious British Booker Prize.
He convinced the jury with his novel The Promise, which chronicles the collapse of a white family in South Africa over the decades from apartheid to democracy. This was the 57-year-old’s third nomination.
The book, which combines “an extraordinary story and rich themes and South Africa’s history of the past 40 years in an incredibly well-written package”, was praised by jury chairperson Maya Jasonoff at the awards ceremony in London on Wednesday evening. The Galgutt family story is about four funerals in four consecutive decades.
Not an optimistic portrait
The title “Promise” refers to a black maid in the family who promised to keep the house and land where she lived. “I think many of us had high hopes for the future,” Galgutt told the BBC. Small land represents only one of the many disappointing promises. In his reception speech, Galgutt said that the portrait he painted about his country was not happy. “I did not plan to portray it that way, but things are not going well around us right now (…),” the author said.
The Booker Prize is awarded annually to the author of an English language novel published in Great Britain or Ireland. It costs 50,000 50,000 (approximately ,000 59,000). Galgate was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2003 and 2010. Galgate grew up in Pretoria, where he played “The Promise”. A childhood cancer shaped his biography.
His novel “Bewilderment” also gave American Richard Powers good opportunities. The book is about the relationship between a scientist and his youngest son in the near future marked by environmental destruction. American Patricia Lockwood was nominated for “Nobody Talks About It”, Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle “, Anuk Arudpragasam from Sri Lanka for” A Passage North “and Nadeefa Mohammed with Somali roots. “The Fortune Men”.
Prix Goncourt for Young Senegalese Writer
Prix Goncourt also received the French Literary Prize on Wednesday. This year, as announced by a jury in Paris, 31-year-old Senegalese writer Mohammed Embougar went on to say “La Plus Secret Memoir des Holmes” (English. The Most Secret Memory of the People). The novel tells the story of a young Senegalese writer who discovers a legendary book in Paris in 1938 and follows in the footsteps of a mysteriously disappearing writer.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 211103-99-857389 / 5
Wannabe twitter trailblazer. Troublemaker. Freelance beer evangelist. Amateur pop culture nerd.
