 First US edition | |
| Author | Alan Paton |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | novel |
| Set in | Johannesburg and Natal, 1940s |
| Publisher | Scribners (USA) & Jonathan Cape (UK) |
Publication date | 1 February 1948[1] |
| Publication place | South Africa |
| Media type | Print (hard~ & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 (hardback ed., UK) 273 (hardback ed., US) |
| ISBN | 0-224-60578-X (hardback edition, UK) |
| OCLC | 13487773 |
| 823.914 | |
| LC Class | PR9369.3 .P37 |
Cry, the Beloved Country is a 1948 novel by South African writer Alan Paton. Set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa, it follows a black village priest and a white farmer who must deal with news of a murder.
American publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers Association that there had been "only three novels published since the first of the year that were worth reading… Cry, The Beloved Country, The Ides of March, and The Naked and the Dead."[2] It remains one of the best-known works of South African literature.[3][4]
Two cinema adaptations of the book have been made, the first in 1951 and the second in 1995. The novel was also adapted as a musical called Lost in the Stars (1949), with a book by the American writer Maxwell Anderson and music composed by the German emigre Kurt Weill.
- ^ Chiwengo, Ngwarsungu (2007). Understanding Cry, the Beloved Country. Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780313335082.
- ^ "Reader's Digest: Gossip, news: J. F. Albright reports on A.B.A. meeting", The Dallas Morning News, 30 May 1948, p. 6.
- ^ Mossman, Robert (1998), "South African Literature: A Global Lesson in One Country", The English Journal.
- ^ Travis, Molly Abel (Summer 2010),"Beyond Empathy: Narrative Distancing and Ethics in Toni Morrison's Beloved and J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace", Journal of Narrative Theory, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 231–250.