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Damon Galgut

    November 12, 1963

    Damon Galgut crafts narratives that delve into the intricacies of family dynamics and deeply entrenched societal issues, explored with keen psychological insight. His distinctive literary style is characterized by precise prose and an adeptness at building palpable tension. Galgut frequently turns his gaze to the realities of South Africa, examining its historical and political undercurrents. Through his novels, he offers readers a compelling and thought-provoking exploration of the human psyche and complex social quandaries.

    Damon Galgut
    The Good Doctor
    The Promise
    In a Strange Room
    Arctic Summer
    The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs
    Small Circle of Beings
    • De goede dokter

      • 280 pages
      • 10 hours of reading

      Een arts op het Zuid-Afrikaanse platteland, die zich heeft geschikt in zijn weinig opzienbarende leven, wordt wakker geschud door de komst van een nieuwe, jonge collega.

      De goede dokter2022
      3.4
    • Der gute Doktor

      Roman

      • 288 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      Booker-Preisträger 2021 Damon Galgut (»Das Versprechen«) erzählt eine intensive Geschichte über eine Freundschaft, die von Verrat überschattet wird. Ein großer Roman über die Hoffnungen und Enttäuschungen Südafrikas nach der Apartheid. »Damon Galgut ist die starke, frische Stimme der südafrikanischen Literatur.« The Observer In einem halb verlassenen Krankenhaus tief in den ehemaligen Homelands von Südafrika fristet Frank Eloff ein ereignisloses Dasein. Als der junge Arzt Laurence Waters auftaucht, um hier sein freiwilliges Jahr zu absolvieren, begegnet ihm Frank sofort mit Misstrauen. Laurence ist das komplette Gegenteil von Frank: jung, optimistisch und beseelt von einem naiven Idealismus, der nie an der Realität getestet wurde. Er erkennt nicht, dass an diesem gottverlassenen Ort unter der friedlichen Oberfläche tödliche Spannungen brodeln – und beschwört eine Katastrophe herauf …

      Der gute Doktor2022
    • The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs

      • 160 pages
      • 6 hours of reading

      An intense and sizzling novel seething with betrayal and political upheaval from the Booker Prize-winning author.

      The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs2022
      3.7
    • Small Circle of Beings

      • 224 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      The first collection of extraordinary stories from one of the greatest writers of our time. With astonishing clarity, Booker Prize winner Galgut explores both the intimacies and violence of family life against the complex landscape of 1980s South Africa. From a mother who experiences a devastating unmooring after her child falls gravely ill, to a son retracing his late father's brief yet passionate affair, the stories ripple out from one another, tenderly exposing those bonds we cannot escape. PRAISE FOR DAMON GALGUT: 'Galgut seems to deliver effortlessly...there's nothing he can't do' Times 'Damon Galgut is very nearly without peer...an essential writer' Garth Greenwell 'Terrifically agile and consistently interesting...certainly up there with Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee' Guardian

      Small Circle of Beings2022
      3.8
    • ***LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE***A masterpiece of a family in crisis from twice Booker-shortlisted author Damon Galgut'Astonishing' Colm Tóibín'A literary masterpiece' Sarah HallThe Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title.In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.'Gorgeous and pleasurable' Tessa Hadley'The most important book of the last ten years' Edmund White'Simply: you must read it' Claire Messud

      The Promise2021
      3.8
    • The Alphabet of Birds

      • 294 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      If death comes to a loved one, can we grieve alone? When all around is in ruins, can we confine our lives to one beautiful room constructed out of art, or love, or family ties? And when the words we know prove inadequate, can we turn to the language of birds?In an arty mansion in Milan’s industrial zone, two men are shown one of the last remaining Futurist noise machines – an Intonarumore – and a painful old truth surfaces. A musician travels to three continents to see her siblings before returning to Johannesburg; her home is plundered every night around her as she composes a requiem. A man follows his male lover from London to Berlin’s clubbing scene and on to a ruined castle in which the lover’s family lives. He is looking for an antidote.The protagonists in SJ Naudé’s South African Literary Award-winning short story collection are listening out for answers that cannot be expressed. Offering fresh perspectives on gay, expat and artistic subcultures and tackling the pain of loss head on, Naudé’s stories go fearlessly and tenderly to the heart of our experiences of desire, love and death.

      The Alphabet of Birds2015
      3.6
    • Arctic Summer

      • 355 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      In 1912, the SS Birmingham approaches India. On board is Morgan Forster, novelist and man of letters, who is embarking on a journey of discovery. As Morgan stands on deck, the promise of a strange new future begins to take shape before his eyes. The seeds of a story start to gather at the corner of his mind: a sense of impending menace, lust in close confines, under a hot, empty sky. It will be another twelve years, and a second time spent in India, before A Passage to India, E. M. Forster's great work of literature, is published. During these years, Morgan will come to a profound understanding of himself as a man, and of the infinite subtleties and complexity of human nature, bringing these great insights to his remarkable novel. At once a fictional exploration of the life and times of one of Britain's finest novelists - his struggle to find a way of living and being - and a stunningly vivid evocation of the mysterious alchemy of the creative process, Arctic Summer is a literary masterpiece, by one of the finest writers of his generation.

      Arctic Summer2014
      3.9
    • In a Strange Room

      Three Journeys

      • 224 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      A finalist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize In this newest novel from South African writer Damon Galgut, a young loner travels across eastern Africa, Europe, and India. Unsure what he's after, and reluctant to return home, he follows the paths of travelers he meets along the way. Treated as a lover, a follower, a guardian, each new encounter—with an enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, a woman on the verge—leads him closer to confronting his own identity. Traversing the quiet of wilderness and the frenzy of border crossings, every new direction is tinged with surmounting mourning, as he is propelled toward a tragic conclusion. In a Strange Room is a brilliant, stylish novel of anger and compassion, longing and thwarted desire, and a hauntingly beautiful evocation of life on the road. First published in The Paris Review in three parts, one of which was selected for a National Magazine Award, and another for the O. Henry Prize, In a Strange Room was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.

      In a Strange Room2010
      3.8