- Published: 30 August 2022
- ISBN: 9781529198188
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 176
- RRP: $26.00
The Quarry
From the Booker prize-winning author of The Promise











- Published: 30 August 2022
- ISBN: 9781529198188
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 176
- RRP: $26.00
In a bleak morality tale about a fugitive from justice, Galgut again demonstrates his flair for charting the vicissitudes of human despair in modern-day South Africa
Publisher's Weekly
A remarkable achievement...Galgut's prose has a spare beauty, suggesting volcanic emotions held rigorously in check
Kirkus Reviews
The Quarry has [a] dry, feral quality... Galgut's landscape reminds a reader of Breyten Breytenbach's South Africa...roads leading to some vanishing point, the feeling of pursuit... The issues of guilt, injustice and redemption give the novel a biblical feel. The writing shines in its peripheral vision, in the backdrops and corners of its scenes
Los Angeles Times
This taut existential thriller...divulges little but manages to suggest volumes... Stark, almost brutal minimalism
Boston Globe
A minimalist, almost allegorical story... Its tension is almost unbearable
Library Journal
One of South Africa's great literary voices
The Economist
[A] spare, intense story of rural South Africa... His clear, elemental prose is never generic
Booklist
An...uncompromising journey into the heart of South Africa's darkness, written in prose that is at once stark and striking. The Quarry is Galgut's homage to Dostoevsky
Literary Review
An extremely atmospheric book in a hazy, raw and entirely realistic sense.... Galgut's story suggests that such points on the map, despite their ghostly quiet, are seething with repressed violence, ready to explode.... A compelling read about guilt and evasion of truth
The Spectator
The scenes of township, quarry and shorescape have a strange, Beckett-like glow and menace
Scotland on Sunday
Beautifully written
Guardian
[Galgut's] prose feels as if it's been fired through a crucible, burning away all the comfortable excess until only a hard, concentrated purity remains.... There are thrilling images here, powerful themes and almost scarily precise writing... Galgut is at the leading edge of what is turning out to be a brilliant documentation of South Africa's post-apartheid transition
Daily Telegraph
We not only read the narrative, but seem to be participating in the headlong rush of events.... A minor masterpiece. The Quarry is told in clear prose where every word counts and the plot and characters are utterly compelling
Sunday Herald
A slim, haunting work of poignancy and near perfection
The Globe and Mail
Galgut writes here with a combination of JM Coetzee's uncluttered simplicity - every sentence stands out, and so seems pregnant with meaning - and Cormac McCarthy's rhythmic biblical dread
The Times