Paton's Beloved Country On this day in 1903 novelist and reformer Alan Paton was born in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa. At Paton's death in 1988, Nelson Mandela said that his first and most famous novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, was "a monument to the future"; a decade later Paton's widow would leave for England, glad that her husband was not there "to see what has happened to his beloved country."
"Alan Paton -- teacher, author, politician -- was one of South Africa's most remarkable sons. This documentary reveals the man and the complex relationship he had with his country. Repelled by the racism he saw all around him in his homeland, he wrote Cry, the Beloved Country, the novel that had the most profound effect in the worldwide struggle against apartheid. His Christian conscience, which would not allow him to be a mere commentator, propelled him into the world of political action."
