Damon Galgut
Damon Galgut (1963-) [1] is a South African novelist, playwright and actor.
He produced an award-winning novel (A Sinless Season, 1982). In 1988 a second novel, A Small Circle of Friends appeared and in 2003 The Good Doctor. In 2010 his novel In a Strange Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His novel Arctic Summer based on the life of E.M. Forster was published in 2014.
Damon Galgut is the winner of the Booker Prize [2] 2021 for his novel The Promise.
Contents
Biography
He grew up in Pretoria and attended Pretoria Boys’ High School.
Training
He studied drama at the University of Cape Town Drama Department, graduating in 1988.
Career
After completing his National Service in the South African army he was appointed resident writer for PACT in Pretoria. He left PACT to go abroad, returned to study at UCT after which he became an actor for CAPAB for a while and taught at the University.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
While still at Pretoria Boys’ High School, he wrote No. 1 Utopia Lane, for which he won a prize at the 1981 SACEE One-act Play Festivals.
Other plays are Echoes of Anger (1983), Alive and Kicking (1984), A Party for Mother (1986), The Greens-keeper (1995).
As a student at UCT he acted in Dis Al (1987), The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail (1988), The Maids (1988), Three Sisters (1987). He has also appeared in Shakespeare's Macbeth (CAPAB 1989).
He assisted as director in a production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1986) and directed Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1989), Master Harold ... and the boys (1995), Psychodelic Cowboy and Sister Nun at Chaplins Theatre Restaurant, March 1994.
Awards, etc
His play Betraying Marriott was short listed for the Amstel Playwright of the Year award in 1989.
Sources
(See De Beer, 1995),
Gosher, 1988. [TH, JH]
NELM catalogue (re Amstel Award).
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