Damon Galgut is a South African novelist, playwright and short-story writer, born in Pretoria in 1963. His work has become an important part of contemporary South African fiction, with novels that place private relationships alongside the country’s changing social and historical landscapes. He studied drama at the University of Cape Town and wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, at seventeen.
Galgut’s fiction includes The Quarry, which he co-scripted for a 1998 film adaptation, and the post-apartheid novel The Good Doctor. Set in a remote rural hospital, The Good Doctor follows an uneasy relationship between two doctors and was shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize. Later novels include In a Strange Room, a three-part journey narrative shortlisted for the Booker in 2010, and Arctic Summer, a fictional account of E. M. Forster’s years connected with India.
His ninth novel, The Promise, centres on a white South African family and an unfulfilled promise to the Black woman who has worked for them. It won the 2021 Booker Prize, after Galgut’s earlier Booker shortlisting for The Good Doctor and In a Strange Room. The Good Doctor also received the 2004 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, while Arctic Summer won the 2015 Sunday Times Fiction Prize. Galgut’s career encompasses fiction for adults, short stories, theatre and screenwriting.
This profile is awaiting source review; collected books are already linked below.
