The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs : Author of the 2021 Booker Prize-winning Novel THE PROMISE

A year ago Patrick Winter was in Namibia completing his military service. Now, during the first free elections, Patrick has returned to the country he defended, the place where he fell in love for the first and only time. With the country poised to change forever, Patrick is forced to revisit his past and scale the wall that he has built around his painful memories of love and war, and loss.Damon Galgut is the author of The Good Doctor, The Quarry, A Sinless Season, Small Circle of Beings,and In A Strange Room. His novels have twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (The Good Doctor; In A Strange Room), and The Impostor was shortlisted for the Dublin/IMPAC Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, which Galgut also won with The Good Doctor. "When Laurence Waters arrives at his new post at a deserted rural hospital, staff physician Frank Eloff is instantly suspicious. Laurence is young, optimistic, and full of big ideas - everything Frank, hardened and embittered by years of irrelevancy and disappointment in the "bush," is not. Frank watches with a mixture of bemusement and irritation a Laurence sets about trying to bring the hospital and its diffident staff back to life." "The whole town is beset with new arrivals and the return of old faces. Frank reestablishes a secret romantic liaison with a local woman, one that will have unexpected consequences for him, for her, and even for Laurence. The Brigadier, an African who shaped himself into a local dictator during apartheid days, is rumored to be back in town, and active in cross-border smuggling. A group of soldiers has moved in to track him, and to close the borders, led by a man from Frank's own dark past. Laurence sees only possibilities - but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last. When the final denouement comes, who will make the cynical choice, and who the moral one?"--Jacket. WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS'PRIZE & Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize A powerful, taut and intense tale of a friendship overshadowed by betrayal, set against the tawdry hopes and disappointments of a post-apartheid South Africa. When Laurence Waters arrives at his new post at a deserted rural hospital, staff physician Frank Eloff is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not-young, optimistic, and full of big ideas. The whole town is beset with new arrivals and the return of old faces. Frank reestablishes a liaison with a woman, one that will have unexpected consequences. A self-made dictator from apartheid days is rumored to be active in cross-border smuggling, and a group of soldiers has moved in to track him, led by a man from Frank's own dark past. Laurence sees only possibilities-but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last. "On a lonely stretch of road a nameless man commits a murder. The victim is a religious minister on his way to take up a post in a nearby town. The murderer decides to steal the dead man's identity only to discover that one of his first duties as the new minister is to bury a body that has just been found close to a disused quarry." "The head of the local police, the Captain, takes a keen interest in the minister's work. Although there is evidence linking young petty criminals to the crime, the Captain knows it is the new minister who is guilty. The Captain decides to bide his time - watching, listening, slowly circling his prey. The Quarry builds to a climax that is almost too much to bear: with the town's church ablaze, the Captain is compelled to pursue the murderer across the veld, as his exhausted quarry struggles to make good his escape."--BOOK JACKET. Damon Galgut's first collection of stories transports us to 1980s South Africa where politics begins at homeThe family—that small circle of beings where love should flourish—can be an arid and alienating territory where hatred and violence may ignite. The title novella is set in a house far out of town, at the end of a dust road that rises up into the mountains. The desperate bondage of family life is revealed to a mother as she sits at her son's bedside where he lies sick, perhaps dying. Galgut's understated prose unpicks the emotional paradoxes of family life with a surprising, surreal twist. In a world where some of the most intimate relationships are those between strangers, Small Circle of Beings describes how children must learn to pull away from their parents if they are to find their own way. Damon Galgut's first collection of stories transports us to 1980s South Africa where politics begins at home The familythat small circle of beings where love should flourishcan be an arid and alienating territory where hatred and violence may ignite. The title novella is set in a house far out of town, at the end of a dust road that rises up into the mountains. The desperate bondage of family life is revealed to a mother as she sits at her son's bedside where he lies sick, perhaps dying. Galgut's understated prose unpicks the emotional paradoxes of family life with a surprising, surreal twist. In a world where some of the most intimate relationships are those between strangers, Small Circle of Beings describes how children must learn to pull away from their parents if they are to find their own way. FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE PROMISE SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, 2003 A year ago Patrick Winter was in Namibia completing his military service. Now, during the first free elections, Patrick has returned to the country he defended; the place where he fell in love for the first and only time. With the country poised to change forever, Patrick is forced to revisit his past and scale the wall that he has built around his painful memories of love, war and loss. 'An astonishingly sensitive writer.' Irish Times 'Engaging and enduring... devastating in the lucidity and austere assurance of its prose.' TLS 'A work whose psychological observation is as subtle as its political analysis.' The Times 'A beautifully written and thoughtful meditation on love, loss and longing.' Attitude A thrilling parable of death and deception from the Booker-shortlisted Galgut. On a lonely stretch of road a man picks up a hitchhiker. The driver is a minister on his way to a new rural congregation. The passenger, a fugitive. When the minister realizes this, the fugitive kills him. He assumes his vestments and identity, only to discover that one of his first duties as the new minister is to preside over his victim's funeral. As the fugitive and the local police chief play a tense game of cat and mouse, culminating in a pursuit across the desolate veldt, Damon Galgut gives us a spare, devastating combat for mans most prized attribute: freedom This novella, originally published ten years ago in South Africa, is an almost allegorical story of a fugitive wandering an unnamed landscape who meets up with a minister, murders him, and assumes his identity. The stark prose reflects the bleak countryside and sense of hopelessness that pervades the book and the dusty village where the man now resides. A rock quarry outside the village serves as a metaphor for moral and spiritual emptiness. It's also a pun, as the man becomes the prey of the local policeman who at first suspects and then relentlessly pursues him A year ago Patrick Winter, a younger South African, was in Namibia completing his military service. Now, during the country's first free elections, Patrick is back, back in the country he once defended and the place where he fell in love for the first and only time. With the country poised to change forever, Patrick is forced to revisit the past and climb the wall behind which he has sealed himself for so long A year ago Patrick Winter was in Namibia completing his military service. Now, during the its first free elections, Patrick has returned to the country he defended; the place where he fell in love for the first and only time. With the country poised to change forever, Patrick is forced to revisit his past and scale the wall that he has built around his painful memories of love and war, and loss. When Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting, Frank is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not - young, optimistic and full of new schemes. The two become uneasy friends, while the rest of the staff in the deserted hospital view Laurence with a mixture of awe and mistrust. Damon Galgut's first collection of stories transports us to 1980s South Africa where politics begins at home. The family - that small circle of beings where love should flourish - can be an arid and alienating territory where hatred and violence may ignite 'Galgut writes like a man on a long fast night drive through bad places. You're in the front passenger seat but you would rather be in the back. You could get out but you don't. And you see things you would rather forget. It's brilliant.' Dermot Healy 'The Good Doctor will be seen as one of the great literary triumphs of South Africa's transition... by a novelist of great and growing power.' Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart An intense and sizzling novel seething with betrayal and political upheaval from the Booker Prize-winning author. 'I liked this novel a lot. It has all the vigour and raw honesty of The Good Doctor.' Doris Lessing An exquisite early work by Damon Galgut, 'a novelist of great and growing power' (Rian Malan) 'An astonishingly sensitive writer' - Irish TimesSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, 2003