
Alan Stewart Paton was a South African writer and anti-apartheid activist. His works include the novels Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), Too Late the Phalarope (1953), and the short story The Waste Land.
Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa’s history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty.Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, “We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony.” Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.
Paton's second novel portrays a police lieutenant's struggle with his conscience when he violates strict South African law concerning relationships between Blacks and whites.
Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful is set in the 1950s, the time of the Passive Resistance campaign, the Sophiatown removals, the emergence of the South African Liberal Party and the early stages of the Nationalist government in power. Revolving around the everyday experiences of a group of men and women, whose lives reflect the human costs of maintaining a racially divided society, Alan Paton, in a series of vivid and compelling episodes, examines what happens between people when such political events overtake their lives.
From Simon & Schuster, Tales from a Troubled Land is Alan Paton's novel about the injustices of South Africa.With a mixture of compassion and despair, this collection of ten short stories by the distinguished author of Cry, the Beloved Country speaks eloquently yet incisively of the injustices of the author's native land, South Africa.
Short stories set in the South Africa of Alan Paton's "Cry The Beloved Country"Stories:Debbie Go Home; Ha'penny; The Divided House; Life for a Life;Death of a Tsotsi; The Worst Thing of his Life; The Waste Land; A Drink in the Passage; Sponono; The Elephant-Shooter
Book by Paton, Alan
Towards the Mountain is the moving autobiography of the author of Cry, the Beloved Country and an illuminating look at the politics and history of South Africa in this century. Born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, in 1903, Alan Paton was the son of deeply religious parents and grew up highly sensitive to questions of philosophy and to the beauty of the natural world. In Towards the Mountain he recalls his early life, his education, and his feelings about his country. He describes in detail his years as principal of Diepkloof, the reformatory for young blacks, where he was able to introduce revolutionary reforms despite a long tradition of rigidity and harshness. Those reforms brought him into conflict with the hard-line advocates of apartheid-who later gained political supremacy-making him all the more aware of the tensions and complexities of South African life. In 1948, on a world tour to study the penal systems of other countries, Paton reached a turning point in his life. The result was Cry, the Beloved Country, the now-classic novel of injustice, forgiveness, and hope, a book that thirty years later still speaks eloquently to men's hearts and minds. A leader in the fight for human justice, Alan Paton has written a number of important books and has stood fast against the ever increasing pressures of the South African government. Towards the Mountain is his story up to the publication of Cry, the Beloved Country, a portrait of a man of tremendous moral courage. It is a story important to us all.
Alan Paton has written a personal book, a moving account of his marriage, of his wife's death - and a celebration of their life together.
by Alan Paton
Rating: 3.8 ⭐
Book by Paton, Alan
Journey An Autobiography [paperback] Alan Paton [Jan 01, 1990]
Everyone knows that Alan Paton wrote Cry the beloved country. What is less well-known is that he was also a courageous and innovative educationalist – the man who pulled up the barbed wire fences at Diepkloof Reformatory and planted geraniums instead. This collection, edited by Clyde Broster, is a series of reflections drawn from his heartfelt experiences during his thirteen years as Principal of Diepkloof Reformatory. Included are short stories, autobiography, drama and poetry in which he looks back with a kind of gentle astonishment at events that took him as a young schoolmaster from Natal to be Principal at this previously gloomy institution. Misgivings, fears, successes, failures – all are dramatically mirrored, as is his determination to test whether a firm compassion and a measure of freedom might be more effective than harshness and close confinement, in the treatment of young delinquents.
Book by Alan Paton, John Howard Griffin, Frederick Franck, Glenn T. Seaborg, Charles Davis, John L. McKenzie, Frank J. Sheed, Herbert Richardson
In 1956, seven amateur adventurers set off from Natal (South Africa) in a decrepit five-ton truck named "Kalahari Polka," on "the craziest expedition ever to enter the unknown." The goal was to make archaeological history by locating a mythical Lost City in a remote range of mountains deep in the Kalahari Desert. Included in the party was Alan Paton, acclaimed author of Cry, the Beloved Country, chairman of the newly-formed South African Liberal Party, and a leading political voice of his time. Lost City of the Kalahari is Paton's hitherto unpublished account of the odd adventure. Recounted with dry, self-deprecating wit and supplemented by hand-drawn maps, provisions lists, photographs, 8mm film stills, and other fascinating memorabilia from the period, this entertaining travelogue brings to life the quirky cast of characters, rough discomforts of the journey, tedium of unvarying landscape, vast desert vistas, and encounters with wild Bushmen and other Kalahari people. And through it all, emerges Paton's own deep love for the austere landscape that "one can never have too much of because it is like breathing."
A classic collection of 20 short stories, the core of which is formed by Alan Paton 's famous first volume of short stories Debbie Go Home (1961), published in the US as Tales from a Troubled Land. The rest of the stories are taken from other sources,10 of them from Paton 's last volume, Knocking on the Door (1975). The collection is prefaced by Paton 's lively interview of himself. Paton himself provides the best description of the collection when he says: you must put your story first, not your politics or religion or your anger they inform the story and give it colour and warmth and fire. But they must never usurp the place of the prime motive, which is to tell a story. The Hero of Currie Road, the last story in the collection, was read publicly by Paton in 1970 in Johannesburg and first published in 1972.
Biography of South African leader whom author knew and thought highly of. Hofmeyr. Biography.
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by Alan Paton
World War One was the seminal event of the 20th Century. It brought about the collapse of the Russian Empire and the formation of the Soviet Union; the rise to world power of the United States; the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the abolition of the Caliphate, and the foundation of the modern Middle East, whose problems we read about daily; and the formation of five new European nation states one of which collapsed in bloody civil war in 1991.It spawned the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations, and it sowed the seeds of World War Two. We live with all its consequences today.This book investigates exactly what happened in the six fateful weeks in 1914 from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the outbreak of World War One. It describes and explains the events that took place and the decisions that brought about the war, and who took those decisions, and in what circumstances at the time. It concentrates on the immediate causes of the war bringing out clearly the human factors; miscalculation, ignorance, poor information, human temperament and attitudes, and even bad organisation.It is a true guide to what caused that terrible war; the human actions that decided the fate of Europe and much of the wider world.
Alan Paton's novel tells the story of the South African people and their struggles in the wake of colonial rule.
HB and DJ see my photos. The Land and People of South Africa. Author Alan Paton. Lippincott Company Portraits of the Nations Series (27 B/W). Cpyrt.1964. Map photo by Edna M. Kaula. English language.162 pages. 8.1 by 6.1 by .7 inches.
by Alan Paton
Rating: 4.5 ⭐
Book by Paton, Alan
Hardcover with dust jacket. Slight wear on all edges of text. Dust jacket in mylar slightly worn on corners with slight tear on front edge near upper end of spine. Cover slightly dented at corners. Else good
1964. No Edition Remarks. 545 pages. Illustrated dust jacket over blue cloth boards. Gilt lettering. Clean pages with light tanning. More pronounced to free endpapers and pastedowns. Bookseller sticker stuck to front pastedown. Top textblock edge dyed yellow. Binding remains firm. Boards have mild edge-wear with slight rubbing to surfaces and bumping to corners. Gilt lettering is bright and clear. Minor wear marks to boards. Clipped jacket. Panels and spine have light edgewear with tears and creases. Visible wear marks to spine and panels.
by Alan Paton
by Alan Paton