Alan Paton: Author of Cry, The Beloved Country Alan Paton was born in the South African city of Pietermaritzburg on January 11, 1903, to a Scottish father and a South African mother of English heritage. An active and intelligent child, Paton went on to attend Natal University, where, among other activities, he wrote poetry and served as student body president. At the age of twenty-two, he became a teacher at two of South Africa’s elite, all-white schools, first in the village of Ixopo, then in Pietermaritzburg. Ten years later, he left teaching to pursue a career as a reformatory worker. He was appointed principal of the Diepkloof Reformatory, a prison school for black youths. While at the reformatory, Paton attempted to loosen the restrictions placed on the youths and emphasized preparation for life outside the reformatory walls. He also traveled extensively to study reformatory schools worldwide. It was on one such trip, shortly after World War II, that he wroteCry, the Beloved Country,the novel that earned him his fame as an author. Cry, the Beloved Countrywas published in 1948 to overwhelming international acclaim—at the time of the author’s death, in 1988, more than fifteen million copies of the novel had been sold, and it had been published in twenty different languages. In Paton’s native South Africa, however, praise forCry, the Beloved Countryremained muted, and the novel’s objective take on the problems of racial inequality in South Africa created much controversy. Nonetheless, Paton’s reputation as one of South Africa’s greatest writers remained secure, though his subsequent novels,Too Late the Phalarope(1953) andAh, But Your Land Is Beautiful(1981), were praised by critics but failed to generate the same excitement asCry, the Beloved Country. Although apartheid, South Africa’s infamous system of enforced racial segregation, was not instituted until after the novel’s publication, the South Africa ofCry, the Beloved Countrywas nevertheless suffering from the effects of racial segregation, enforced inequality, and prejudice. The crime rate was high, and attacks on whites by black agitators caused panic among the country’s white citizens. Black South Africans found themselves adrift as the traditional tribal cultures gave way to the lure of the cities, and many South Africans were left without any moral or social organization to turn to. Whites held a monopoly on political power, and they did nothing to alleviate the extreme poverty among black South Africans, which in turn led many
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