Cry the Beloved Country - Review

Welcome back from Summer! We hope it was productive and enjoyable. Summer is a great time to catch up on reading for the Global Literacy Requirement for the Certificate. One of the books on the list is the Classic African novel, Cry the Beloved Country

by Alan Paton.

Cry the Beloved country is a historical fiction novel set in the 1940’s. Historically in South Africa this is the time just when the British were getting ready to decolonize South Africa and it would become an independent country. This is also around the time period that the apartheid government (white dominant government with a strong policy of racial segregation) was gaining power. The story hints at this political situation but the focus is on the impact of large migrations of Black South Africans (Native South Africans) to the cities looking for work which forms the shantytowns or slums of South Africa. The cultural focus is how this migration destroys the strength of the traditional tribal communities and families. The story line of Cry the Beloved Country follows a Zulu Anglican priest who leaves his town of Ndotsheni, Natal (Eastern South Africa) in search of his son and sister who have travelled to the large city of Johannesburg. His goal is to bring them back home to Ndotsheni. In some cases he finds success and others failure. He experiences many struggles in the cultural conflict of the urban v. rural society in South Africa and finds a surprising friend across racial barriers. Cry the Beloved Country is considered a classic but is also readable for high schoolers with a smooth story line and provides insight into the cultural conflicts of South Africa in the 1940s as well as insight into the South African court system of the time.