An immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948, Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. This 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.
Set in South Africa in the 1940's, and written from Kumalo's perspective, the reader can begin to grasp the culture and mindset of a native of South Africa. The other characters and the situations they face are not shallow and stereotypical and it is easy to enter, often with sympathy, into the perspectives and motivations of a wide range of characters.
Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.