Author Description

This second part of Alan Paton's autobiography begins in 1948, the year of publication of his best-selling book "Cry, the Beloved Country" and the rise to power of the Afrikaner Nationalists, whose oppressive and racist policies Paton was to fight as a writer, leader of the Liberal Party and devoted Christian. The book continues to focus on Paton's literary and political life. He tells of the success of "Cry, the Beloved Country", including the making of a musical and film based on it; his subsequent writing, including biographies of J.H.Hofmeyer and Archbishop Geoffrey Clayton, and the novel "Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful". His involvement with the controversial Liberal Party, which he led during the stormy time of the Sharpeville massacre and afterwards, is remembered, as is a visit to the USA in the last days of McCarthyism and legal segregation, and acquaintances including Nelson Mandela, Trevor Huddleston, Patrick Duncan, Robert Sobukwe and Chief Albert Lutuli. The story ends in 1968, when the Liberal Party disbanded to avoid obeying the government's order to separate into racial parties, but an epilogue brings the reader up to the present day. The first part of the autobiography is "Towards the Mountain", (OUP, 1981).