A novel that examines racial division. social injustice and the violence that exists in South Africa during the 1940s. Yet 'Cry The Beloved Country' is a moving story about two men who are able to rise up above the bitterness and tension. One is Stephen Kumalo, the Zulu pastor and the other Jarvis, the white man.
Their lives are brought together when the son of Stephen kills the son of Jarvis.
The novel also explores the deprivation suffered by the blacks and life both within a small African village and the highly populated city of Johannesburg.
One of the best books I have ever read and will stay with me for a very long time.

After hearing of Bryson's call to South Africa, it made me remember this book I read years ago. It is a fantastic book that opens your eyes to the cultural and political challenges in South Africa. Since I read it so long ago, the following is an "official" review:


"Cry, the Beloved Country is a monument to the future. One of South Africa's leading humanists, Alan Paton vividly captured his eloquent faith in the essential goodness of people." — Nelson Mandela*

The book is Alan Paton's ode to his complex homeland—a land that Westerners have come to understand, in part, because of the eloquence of his passionate work. Inspired in many ways by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country brings heart and humanity to the struggles of black South Africans. First published in America, it brought a new international focus to a South African conflict that had previously been shrouded in secrecy and shadow. From the time of its initial publication, to its immediate worldwide success and recognition, to this very day, Paton's novel has been an anthem to racial tolerance and understanding.

The novel explores several powerful themes, among them compassion, forgiveness, humility and racial injustice and prejudice. While the main storyline tells the tale of two families struggling to overcome hardship, South Africa herself is also a main character. According to the author, the title came from three or four passages that make mention of his beloved country, including: "Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers…for fear will rob him of all if he gives too much." This is a novel that will make you fall in love with South Africa—with her rich land, her struggles, her beauty, her passion and her people.

Heartbreaking and moving story of two fathers in almost-apartheid South Africa--1948. One, a Zulu Anglican pastor whose son by accident kills the son of a white landowner, who lives near to the pastor and his church. The lives of the two fathers become entwined.

In this novel the author is both novelist and poet. Beautifully written, with deep characterizations. A short accessible read. A genuine classic!

There are so many layers of meaning in this book. You can't just close it after the last page and say, "Yep, I read it. Here's what it's about..." The story is fairly simply told, almost understated, but you can feel the author's love for his country and its people, warts and all. There's so much to explore here about hope, despair, love, exploitation, forgiveness, and perseverance. My greatest admiration goes to the Jarvis character for the way he deals with his grief and shows his forgiveness through acts of quiet generosity.

The book was written sixty years ago, but the issues and concerns are just as relevant today as they were then---not just for South Africa, but worldwide.

Thanks, Elisabeth! I've bypassed this book countless times over the years and would not have read it without your recommendation. :)

I found Cry, the Beloved Country to be a heart-breaking yet absolutely beautiful book. It was movingly told. I am rereading parts of it and will not soon forget it. It has inspired me to learn more about the history of South Africa as well as the current situation in SA which seems problematic, though I have only had time to read a smattering of articles on current topics.

Cry, the Beloved Country is set in the mid 1940's in the early stages of apartheid. This story in this book underscores the complex conditions of life in South Africa and between the races in SA at that time. The story ends with a hope that I think failed to fully develop. Though we know historically apartheid was outlawed (after the setting of this book), I think the hope for sympathy between the races has failed to materialize and that SA continues to be a land with racial hatred between peoples.

It you like to learn about other countries and historical settings, if you like books about decent people who put principles above personal interest, it you like a book with finely drawn characters, or if you like a book that makes you feel hope for humanity, read Cry, the Beloved Country. It is all of that and more.

Read Sara's review. It is perfect.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A novel that we read in junior high (in grade nine English, to be exact), Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country was likely the first school-assigned literary classics offering that I truly and with all my heart and soul unreservedly enjoyed reading. And while Cry, the Beloved Country was not exactly an easy reading experience, it was immensely satisfying, intense, emotionally riveting, and personally very much appreciated, as my parents were absolutely horrified and aghast that our English teacher would dare have us read a novel they themselves considered politically problematic (as both of them were I guess afraid of me somehow turning into a raging Socialist or Communist, as I had always had a very developed sense of justice versus injustice, and was therefore often, but especially upon reading Cry, the Beloved Country vehemently and loudly pontificating that Apartheid was one of the most unjust and evil political and economic systems ever and needed to be changed, pronto). Highly recommended is Cry, the Beloved Country and yes, most definitely also suitable for teenagers, although the issues encountered should, no they must, be discussed and debated (and not to forget Alan Paton's exquisite writing style, as we often seem to focus only on the contents and themes of novels, whilst ignoring or at least skimming over questions of stylistics, parallelisms, irony, in other words, the structures in and through which the contents and themes of novels, of any writing, are presented to and featured for potential readers).

Cry, The Beloved Country is set in South Africa during apartheid. In the first section of the book, Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo leaves his home in the countryside to search for his wayward sister and son in Johannesburg. He gradually uncovers that his son has turned to a life of crime. He then learns that his son has shot and killed a white man, Mr. Jarvis, during a robbery. Ironically, Mr. Jarvis was working to help the native population. These tragic events take place within the framework of the larger chaos and injustice that is taking place in South Africa. Pastor Kumalo lends a sad, quiet dignity as the story's narrator, but I was somewhat disappointed by the book. It does read like the kind of book that you are forced to read in high school, one that beats you over the head with its message.

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice.

I read this book for two reasons:
1) I am participating in a group that plans to read at least one book from every country in the world. I had read this book set in South Africa in 1946 once before and wanted to read it again.
2) I was born in 1948 and that is when Apartheid started in South Africa.

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning separateness. The Dutch whites of the era wanted to keep separate from the blacks. Excuse me, who was there first? Look at that word again. It starts with APART. Oh, how upsetting.

There is so much I could tell you about the story of this book, but then it would be spoiled.

In this book there is injustice yet forgiveness. Very powerful story.

5 stars

Not a single word misplaced. Every movement and moment in its place, woven together with a master’s hand. The joy of slowly weaving through every thread of this color and that was only overshadowed by the wonder of seeing it all radiantly together as a whole.

This is a story that is neither propaganda nor polemic, but an honest telling as the eyes see it and the body feels it and the heart knows it. Of things true that must be spoken, and of things too true to be spoken of at all in words, yet which somehow are still heard.

Paton’s story of two fathers whose lives collide with the twin forces of tragedy and triumph—of our most desperate fears, and of our most holy instincts—rings true because it never fought to be. It is true in the same way as a harmony (of which Paton is a literary master). It sings on its own. It needs no explaining or defense. As the reader, I happily surrendered to it.

Paton invited us into his home, and I have a great hunger to keep exploring. To find answers to our great human condition of life and life together in this world. To be invited such, and to know great answers will be found along the way, is in a way the magic of literature.

Paton's novel follows the story of Steven Kumalo, an impoverished priest who is searching for his wayward son who left their homestead for the bright lights of Johannesburg, only to get lost in a life of crime. In fact the first half of the book reads like a detective story as Steven searches fruitlessly for his son, his sense of weariness and ennui gradually increasing as he is drawn further and further into the life of petty crime which his son has become a part of. Steven's sense of discombobulation is exacerbated when he hears the news that his son is in jail for the murder of a white engineer who was a vocal supporter of native rights in South Africa and the rest of the novel deals with the fall out of the crime, including his sons execution and the drawing together between Steven and Jarvis, the father of the man who was murdered by Steven's son. 

If the above all sounds very straightforward then that is because the novel's themes run much deeper than its plot. Interspersed with its exploration of the institutionalised racism of South African society are themes of faith, forgiveness and family, of the enduring power of love against ignominious hatred and of the indomitable and irrepressible beauty of South Africa , a beauty which often jolts the characters and readers into life. More than this however, the novel explores the continuity of life in spite of the tragedies which we are forced to endure; Jarvis grows as a person after he reads his son's humanistic teachings and the lightness which existed in his son has been passed on to this grandson, who acts as a beacon against the darkness which overwhelmed Steven's soul following his son's incarceration and execution. 'Cry the Beloved Country' is a powerful exploration if life in a high racialized South Africa just as apartheid is about to forever drive a wedge between its black and white residents.

I love when books take you on a journey. The past month, I have been in South Africa — first, with The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer; secondly, with Trevor Noah in Born a Crime; and now I have just finished Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. I saved the best for last and I give it 4.5 stars.

It is a book about an aging native African parson who leaves his remote village to search Johannesburg for his son and sister, from whom he has not heard in a very long time. He fears the worst has happened, so he must go to find out. The story is about loss, the parson’s search, what he finds, and how he is changed, and others are changed, in the aftermath of his own journey, returning to his village.

Whether the country is a metaphor for the people, or the other way around, I am not sure, but the book is filled with beautiful, poetic prose about the tragic conditions of the land, symbolic of the decline of the moral society from which he comes.

This is a book I might never have read were it not for the Goodreads group, Catching Up With the Classics. Thank you to the members of that group for bringing it to my attention. It was a wonderful experience.

This book has been like an old newsreel travelogue. As I bid a fond farewell to the parson and the veld, my next journey will lead me to another far away but very different subtropical locale, Los Angeles, where many of the plants of South Africa also grow, such as the Agapanthus.