Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria. In 2003, he won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for The Good Doctor , which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. After his novel In an Unknown Room was shortlisted for the same prize in 2010, Galgut finally won the Man Booker Prize in 2021 – for The Promise . Galgut has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2013. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa.