Cry, the Beloved Country
by Alan Paton
Two fathers. One act of violence. No winners.
you want to understand apartheid South Africa through grief rather than argument
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Published in 1948 — the same year the National Party came to power and implemented apartheid — Paton's novel follows a Zulu pastor traveling to Johannesburg to find his son, and a white farmer whose son has been killed. Written by a white South African who opposed apartheid from within, it is flawed in ways that belong to its era and essential in ways that transcend it. The first South African novel to reach global audiences and make the world see Black South Africans as fully human. The dispatch that opened the door.
WHERE THIS BOOK LIVES
- Setting
- South Africa • Southern Africa
- Voice
- Written by a South African author
- Themes
- After Empire
