Race Relations in Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country

Capturing a snapshot of the race relations that would set the stage for apartheid in South Africa, Alan Paton’s 1949 novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, paints a complicated portrait of the widening divisions between dissolving tribal cultures and white communities. This necessary edition presents essays that examine the treatment of race relations in Cry, the Beloved Country, discussing topics such as whether or not the book’s political vision was naive, how Paton’s complex view on goodness and badness helped to inform his text, and how the novel’s publication helped or hindered open conversations regarding race in South Africa. An in-depth biography of author Alan Paton and modern perspectives on race in South Africa, including an examination of post-apartheid conditions, are included as well.