LouisvilleReads | Ep 29 | The Promise (2021) | Damon Galgut | 4-22-22

Episode #29 of LouisvilleReads! Reviewing the 2021 winner of The Booker Prizes 'The Promise' by South African novelist and playwright Damon Galgut. The dying matriarch of the Afrikaans Swart family on the outskirts of Pretoria leaves her clan one request: to will a small shack on the family farm to their Black housekeeper Salome. Over the next four decades as South Africa transitions from Apartheid to late 2010's realities, the younger generation of Swart's tries (and fails) to fulfill their mother's promise, finding in turn that the promise of South Africa (and British colonialism in general) has left their already naturally fallible humanity with one core contradiction: they cannot part with a home that is essentially not their own, even if they desperately want desire to do so. Interview with the author on the back half!