‚Cry, The Beloved Country‘ by Alan Paton
The novel we are introducing this month is a classic of 20th Century literature, and one of the best known South African novels. Cry, the Beloved Country, the first novel by Alan Paton, (1948) was written before the passage of a new law institutionalising the Apartheid political system in South Africa, which came into force later that year. The novel was internationally successful, and before Alan Paton died in 1988, it had sold over 15 million copies.
What’s the novel about?
The publisher’s description on the back of the 1988 edition of the novel says:
In the city of Johannesburg, a father seeks his delinquent son. His search takes him through a labyrinth of murder, prostitution, racial hatred and, ultimately, reconciliation.
In ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’ Alan Paton addresses the problem of race relations in South Africa with the scrupulousness of the historian, the sensitivity of a poet. Forty years after its creation, it remains the classic narrative of racial tension – intensely pertinent, unforgettably poignant.
Book recommendations from Reading Circle members
• Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout (2022): The first Covid novel. Lucy reluctantly goes into lockdown with her ex-husband William in a house on the coast of Maine.
• Orbital by Samantha Harvey (2023): This novel follows six fictional astronauts over 24 hours on an orbiting space station and incorporates elements of science fiction, literary fiction, and philosophical drama. Booker Prize winner in 2024.
• Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2025): A bumper compilation of middle-aged life experience, built around the friendship of three Nigerian women whose lives haven’t panned out as imagined. (According to The Guardian)
• Macbeth (An Undoing) by Zinnie Harris (2023 – revised edition): A play with a powerful reimagining of Shakespeare’s brutal tragedy, telling Lady Macbeth’s story as it has never been heard. (Publisher’s description).
• Les Parisiennes by Anne Sebba (2016): How the women of Paris lived, loved and died in the 1940s. It focuses especially on the Nazi occupation of Paris from 1940 to 1944.
Music Played
• Nkosi Sikelel Afrika (God Save Africa) sung by Miriam Makeba, Paul Simon, Black Mambazo, Hugh Masekela and others.
• Paul Simon, accompanied by Linda Ronstadt, singing Under African Skies from his Graceland LP of 1986.
