Who was Alan Paton? -- excerpt from Edward Callen's Introduction to 1987 edition -

While teaching  .  .  .  Paton wrote and discarded two novels of white South Africa.  (Through a shared interest) in summer camps for disadvantaged white youths - he met Jan Hofmeyr - who was to become South Africa's most prominent liberal statesman - 

.  .  .

In 1934 Hofmeyr held cabinet portfolios  of Education and the Interior.  .  .  .  When supervisors were sought -- to transform existing reformatories into schools - Paton applied and was offered Diepkloof - a large black reformatory that housed 400 boys aged 9-21 

Its buildings were old - Mahatma Gandhi had been jailed there in 1913 - sanitary arrangements were primitive -

-- boys were locked in 20 to a cell - with a container of water and a bucket for bodily needs -

in 3 years Paton was able to transform the place -

in 1946 he undertook a tour of penal institutions in Europe at his own expense - while doing so, in Norway, in an hour before dinner, he was moved to write the lyrical opening of Cry the Beloved Country -

(the rest is history, as they say.)

Alan Paton's note on the 1959 edition of Cry the Beloved Country: -

It is some eleven years since the first Author's Note was written.  The population of S. Africa today is estimated to be about 15, 000, 000, of whom 3,000,000 are white.  1 1/4 millions are colored people, nearly 1/2 million are Indians, the rest are Africans.  I did not mention the Indians in the first Author's Note because I did not wish to confuse readers  .  .  .  but the existence of this minority is now much better known  .  .  .  because their position has become so desperate under apartheid legislation.  .  .  . 

Alan Paton 
Natal, S. Africa.

As Meikhtila burns in Burma - I remember this - Alan Paton, forward to 1987 edition of Cry the Beloved Country -

Alan Paton's introductions to reprints of his novel "Cry the Beloved Country" about S. Africa -- a compilation - I bought my copy in 1996 when the movie came out.

-- From 1987 edition: Cry the Beloved Country, though it is a story about S. Africa, was not written in that country at all. It was begun in Trondheim, Norway and finished in San Francisco on Christmas Eve . . . Maxwell Perkins, sr. editor of Scribners, accepted it at once --

Perkins said, one of the most important characters in the story is the land itself -- "

Paton said, this passage in the book is where the title comes from --

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, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

Alan Paton, Natal S. Africa.