Alan Paton's Classic Novel, Cry, the Beloved Country: An Exploration of South Africa's Social Struggles

NVWriter: One of the best books I've read. Characters are unforgettable. Everyone should read Cry the Beloved Country!

United States on Nov 30, 2023

Amazon Customer: I can't express how much I loved this book. The writing was poetic and beautiful mixed with an amazing storyline and description of familial relationships. It was a great look into pre-apartheid South Africa. Definitely worth the read!

United States on Nov 14, 2023

Mr. G. J. Duff: Important and, to me, an unusual book in which Alan Paton describes experience from both a black and white man's perspectives, using the language that presumably he knew so well. First published in 1948, it is in many ways a a book that captures both the tragedy and beauty of South Africa while giving some signs of hope (and warnings) of the society that is to be shaped over the coming years. He draws partly on his experience of working in a reformatory. He testified on behalf of Mandela at the Rivonia Trial.

United Kingdom on Sep 04, 2023

Michelle Stevens: Cry the beloved country. This book takes place during the apartheid in South Africa. It is a classic book and it is well written. I would recommend it for slightly older children, such as high schoolers. There are certain themes that are suggested or followed that our little little old for young children. On the flip side it really did happen, even though the story is not true. The circumstances behind the story did occur and it is a hard read when you grew up and did not hear that much about what was going on. As an adult I only remember hearing about Nelson Mandela and that name. I didn't really know who he was, or some of the great things he had done. It is sad that in America we don't learn some of the absolutely crucial or important things going on around the world. It is a good book to read.

United States on Apr 26, 2023

David Langlois: I had been speaking with a friend of South African descent about South Africa, and that I really knew so little of that country. He recommended that I read this book. He could not have made a better recommendation. I could not put the book down once I started reading it. The book is many things: distressing in its description of black and white relations; wonderful in its description of life in the country and in Johannesburg; eminently eloquent character descriptions; and sobering in its tale. Highly recommended.

Canada on May 09, 2022

JaquiP: The prose and beautiful descriptions of South Africa are divine. I read a lot of it softly out aloud savouring the writing, which powerfully evokes place and character. It felt to me ike reading the bible if that doesn't sound too soppy, or poetry. For the language is very poetic. "There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass covered and rolling and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke, and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa." And that is just the opening words. The book is moving and fair and I can quite see why people have said it is the greatest novel to emerge out of the tragedy of South Africa. It is impossible not to fall under the spell of Stephen Kumalo (the Umfundisi- or priest). I read this book extremely slowly taking my time to absorb myself in the story, the characters and the haunting imagery, images of the land and people and above all the language. It is a very beautifully written book. It makes you feel like you want to strive to be a better person. It is wonderful.

United Kingdom on Feb 27, 2020

Nick Butcher: During the 19th century aggressive and competitive colonial expansion by the British and the Dutch Afrikaaners from the Cape Colony into the interior had substantially dispossessed the indigenous native populations of their territory, with a subsequent consolidation of power through a series of legislative provisions following the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

The discovery of diamonds and gold led to the rapid development of mining industries set up to harvest the vast natural resources the country had to offer, and the creation of enormous wealth in the hands of those with the enterprise, capital and know-how to extract those resources.

These entrepreneurs relied on unskilled labour to extract the minerals. Young men and women abandoned their rural communities and headed for the towns in search of a new life away from the poverty and hardship of subsistence farming at the mercy of drought and the failure of the traditional way of life to adapt to modern methods of cultivation.

The streets of Johannesburg were not however paved with gold, any more than the streets of London and other major cities had been in the course of our own Industrial...

United Kingdom on Feb 11, 2016

Kersi F. Munshi: This book was written in the year of my birth, 1948, and it has moved me as no other in my 66 years. It is not only a novel, it is a public statement on the system of government which existed in South Africa in that period, and the society it had created - divided, segregated socially as well as economically and, therefore, rendered a permanent tinderbox. It would have been impossible to have lived in Apartheid South Africa and not thought that, somewhere along the way, the system would explode, for it gave the illusion - on the surface - of order which barely covered a roaring disorder underneath.

It is a book on human nature, man's inhumanity to man, man's kindness to man, and on the philosophy of life - especially, its frailty and fatality. It is a book on how the poor build that which the powerful destroy. How the poor work, and the rich enjoy. How the poor get poorer and the rich try harder to keep it so.

The characters are realistic: the humble village parson of Ndotsheni, Rev. Stephen Kumalo, his sincere and helpful newfound friend, Rev. Msimangu, the most accommodating Mrs. Lithebe whose philosophy in life is, "Why are we born if not to help each other?" Then...

United States on Jan 14, 2015

Anne Mills: A wonderful, profound, and very beautiful book. As other reviewers have noted, it was written by a white South African in the late 1940's, and is set in that time and place, just before apartheid was officially imposed. It tells the story of Stephen Kumalo, a black minister from the countryside, who travels to Johannesburg to find his sister, and his son, both of whom have have vanished into the great city. He finds them, but his son has killed a white man, and his sister is a prostitute. The full story is described elsewhere; suffice it to say that it ends tragically, but with redeeming grace.

The language of this book is amazing, poetic but also critical in the development of character. In large part the book is a love song to the land of South Africa, a place of great natural beauty which has been badly treated by man. But the language is also wonderful in expressing different personalities, different experiences, and different ways of thinking -- it changes and shifts with the subject.

The plot and characterization are very powerful. The people are rounded, neither all good nor all bad, and each speaks with his or her own voice. The story pulls one forward with...

United States on Dec 02, 2012

Katharine Kirby: Getting involved in this and moving along with it was surprisingly leaden; I didn't think it would be such a demanding, long, `heavy' read or as terribly grim and sad as it turned out to be. The short sentences, the lack of punctuation, and the simplicity of the text were, for me, sometimes tedious rather than engaging. It felt like reading miles of Dr. Seuss. Or, probably more intentionally, the chapters and verses of The Holy Bible.

The book was written in 1946; and fiction, even that based on fact, has altered so much since then. Alan Paton was a forward thinking man of his time, a Liberal politician, a racial and environmental campaigner and philosopher as well as a writer. He used the fame and fortune gained by writing Cry the Beloved Country to live the rest of his life as he wished. He pays tribute to the positive effect the book had on his life in the forewords.

I know it is a classic and we read it at school in the sixties. Then it was `cool' to be Anti Apartheid and to hold righteous strong views. Sanctions such as not buying South African fruit and other SA produce were usual but high-minded assertions were obviously never tested in the way they would have...

United Kingdom on May 29, 2012