Alan Paton Books In Order

Novels

  1. Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)
  2. Too Late the Phalarope (1953)
  3. Debbie, Go Home (1961)
  4. Hofmeyr (1964)
  5. Instrument of Thy Peace (1968)
  6. Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful (1981)

Collections

  1. Tales from a Troubled Land (1961)

Plays

  1. Sponono (1965)

Non fiction

  1. South Africa and Her People (1957)
  2. The Land and People of South Africa (1964)
  3. Kontakion for You Departed (1969)
  4. Apartheid and the Archbishop (1974)
  5. Knocking On the Door (1975)
  6. Towards the Mountain (1980)
  7. Save the Beloved Country (1987)
  8. Journey Continued (1988)

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Alan Paton Books Overview

Cry, the Beloved Country

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 most famous and important novel in South Africa’s history, and an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948, Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty. 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.

Too Late the Phalarope

Too Late the Phalarope is set in South Africa, as well as its predecessor, CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY. And like that earlier novel, Too Late the Phalarope uses the lives of ordinary people to illustrate the inhuman quality of South African apartheid. Racial segregation is odious in concept, impossible in application. To prove it, Paton tells us the story of Pieter, a white policeman, who has an affair with a native girl. He is betrayed and reported, and thus brings shame on himself and his family.

Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful

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.

Tales from a Troubled Land

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.

Knocking On the Door

This is a collection of 70 poems, short stories, articles and speeches. With three exceptions, none have previously been published in the United States; about a third of the pieces first appear here. Chronologically arranged, they are divided into sections corresponding to Paton’s life interests: penal reform, literature and opposition to apartheid, first within, and then outside the Liberal Party. ‘One is struck by the strong resemblance in certain particulars to writers and intellectual witnesses like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and George Orwell.’ The New York Times

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