Alan Paton: weeping for the beloved country

Alan Stewart Patons novel Cry the Beloved Country was instrumental in alerting the world to the horrors of apartheid at about the same time the National Party came into power in 1948. And its success gave Paton the economic freedom to devote his life to the two things that mattered most to him, and that he did extraordinarily well writing and political activism. His strong faith and deep sense of fairness permeated everything he did from advocating against corporal punishment to contributing to the establishment of one of South Africas first truly multiracial political parties.