Novel
Cry, the Beloved Country
Alan Paton · 1948
Synopsis
The Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo leaves his village of Ndotsheni, in the hills of Natal, for Johannesburg, where a letter from Father Msimangu summons him to the bedside of his sister Gertrude. He discovers that she lives by prostitution, and searches the city for his son Absalom, who, he learns, used to steal from white people's houses. The young man is arrested for the murder of Arthur Jarvis, a white engineer who fought for racial equality and the son of James Jarvis, a farmer who is Kumalo's neighbour.
Context
The novel was begun in 1946 in Trondheim, during a study trip to prisons abroad, and completed in San Francisco on Christmas Eve. The book appeared on 1 February 1948 from Scribner in New York and from Jonathan Cape in London, a few months before apartheid became law. Adaptations followed quickly: Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson made a musical from it that opened on Broadway in October 1949, Zoltan Korda a film in 1951, Darrell Roodt another in 1995.
Who it is for
A novel in English, in a simple prose; the reader follows the pastor step by step in a city he does not know.
Prizes and reception
Sold in more than fifteen million copies during its author's lifetime; he died forty years after its publication.
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