South African Damon Galgut Wins Booker Prize for ‘The Promise’

Three American authors are in the running for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction, whose winner will be chosen Wednesday from six novels that explore historical traumas, the nature of consciousness and the mind-warping power of the internet.

South African writer Damon Galgut’s story of racism and reckoning, “The Promise,” is British bookmakers’ favorite to win the 50,000 pound ($69,000 prize). Many bettors think it will be third time lucky for Galgut, who was previously a finalist for “The Good Doctor” in 2003 and “In a Strange Room” in 2010.

Second-favorite is U.S. writer Richard Powers’ “Bewilderment,” the story of an astrobiologist trying to care for his neurodivergent, environmentalist son. Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2019 for the eco-epic “The Overstory,” which was also a 2018 Booker Prize finalist.

The other American contenders are Patricia Lockwood’s social media-steeped novel “No One is Talking About This” and Maggie