Chatto reprints 153k copies of Galgut's Booker winner The Promise

Chatto & Windus says it has reprinted 153,000 copies of Damon Galgut's Booker-winning novel The Promise. 

Galgut scooped the £50,000 prize earlier this month for his novel set in South Africa during the country’s transition out of Apartheid. Galgut had been shortlisted for the Booker twice before.  

The Promise explores the interconnected relationships between the members of a diminishing white family through the sequential lens of four funerals and was praised by judges as “a spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh”. The reprints are across first formats for home and international.

Atlantic also confirmed it was reprinting Galgut's earlier titles. Will Atkinson, m.d and publisher, told The Bookseller: “We are absolutely delighted for Damon and that this very fine book has received such recognition. All the backlist has sold steadily since the longlisting and we have pushed the button on reprints of five of them.”  

After his win, Galgut's editor, Clara Farmer, said The Promise was the author’s “masterpiece” and the Chatto and Vintage team “couldn’t be more thrilled for this win”. She also thanked her former employer Atlantic Books, where she first took on Galgut for his novel The Good Doctor. 

The Promise has sold 23,878 copies in hardback, with 14,622 of those sold in the last two weeks, a 1,925% jump in volume compared with the two weeks before.