Alan Paton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alan Paton.jpg
Part of a series on
Apartheid
Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist.

Family[edit]

Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province (now KwaZulu-Natal), the son of a minor civil servant.[1] After attending Maritzburg College, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Natal[1] in his hometown, followed by a diploma in education. After graduation, Paton worked as a teacher, first at the Ixopo High School, and subsequently at Maritzburg College[1] While at Ixopo he met Dorrie Francis Lusted.[1] They were married in 1928 and remained together until her death from emphysema in 1967.[1] Their life together is documented in Paton's book Kontakion for You Departed, published in 1969.

Early career[edit]

He served as the principal of Diepkloof Reformatory for young (African Black) offenders from 1935 to 1949, where he introduced controversial progressive reforms,[1]including policies on open dormitories, work permits, and home visitation. Boys were initially housed in closed dormitories; once they had proven themselves trustworthy, they would be transferred to open dormitories within the compound. Boys who showed great trustworthiness would be permitted to work outside the compound. In some cases, boys were even permitted to reside outside the compound under the supervision of a care family. Fewer than 5% of the 10,000 boys who were given home leave during Paton's years at Diepkloof ever broke their trust by failing to return.

After publishing[edit]

Paton volunteered for service during World War II, but was refused. After the war he took a trip, at his own expense, to tour correctional facilities across the world. He toured Scandinavia, England, continental Europe, Canada, and the United States. During his time in Norway, he began work on his seminal novel Cry, The Beloved Country, which he completed over the course of his journey, finishing it on Christmas Eve in San Francisco in 1946.[1] There, he met Aubrey and Marigold Burns, who read his manuscript and found a publisher: the editor Maxwell Perkins, noted for editing novels of Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, guided Paton's first novel through publication with Scribner's.
Paton published multiple books in the 1950s and became wealthy from their sales.

Opposition to apartheid[edit]

In 1948, four months after the publication of Cry, The Beloved Country, the separatist National Party came to power in South Africa. In 1953 Paton founded the Liberal Party of South Africa, which fought against the apartheid legislation introduced by the National Party. He remained the president of the SALP until its forced dissolution by the apartheid regime in the late 1960s, officially because its membership comprised both blacks and whites. Paton was a friend of Bernard Friedman, founder of the Progressive Party.[2] Paton's writer colleague Laurens van der Post, who had moved to England in the 1930s, helped the party in many ways. Van der Post knew that the South African Secret Police were aware that he was paying money to Paton, but could not stop it by legal procedures. Paton himself adopted a peaceful opposition in protests against apartheid, as did many others in the party; some SALP members took a more violent route, and consequently some stigma did attach to the party. Paton's passport was confiscated on his return from New York in 1960, where he had been presented with the annual Freedom Award.[3] It was not returned for ten years.
Paton retired to Botha's Hill, where he resided until his death. He is honoured at the Hall of Freedom of the Liberal International organisation.[4]

Other works[edit]

Cry, The Beloved Country has been filmed twice (in 1951 and 1995) and was the basis for the Broadway musical Lost in the Stars (adaptation by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt Weill). Paton's second and third novels, Too Late the Phalarope (1953) and Ah, but Your Land is Beautiful (1981), and his short stories, Tales From a Troubled Land (1961), all deal with the same racial themes that concerned the author in his first novel.[3] Ah, but Your Land is Beautiful was built on parallel life stories, letters, speeches, news and records in legal proceedings, and mixed fictional and real-life characters, such as Donald Molteno, Albert Luthuli and Hendrik Verwoerd. The novel is categorised as historical fiction, as it gives an accurate account of the resistance movement in South Africa during the 1960s. "Paton attempts to imbue his characters with a humanity not expected of them. In this novel, for example, we meet the supposedly obdurate Afrikaner who contravenes the infamous Immorality Act. There are other Afrikaners, too, who are led by their consciences and not by rules, and regulations promulgated by a faceless, monolithic parliament."[5]
Paton was a prolific essay writer on race and politics in South Africa. In Save the Beloved Country he plays on the famous title of his first novel, but keeps a serious tone in discussing many of the famous personalities and issues on different sides of South Africa's apartheid struggle. His Anglican faith was another factor in his life and work: the title of one work is Instrument of Thy Peace. Paton also wrote two autobiographies: Towards the Mountain deals with Paton's life leading up to and including the publication of Cry, the Beloved Country (an event that changed the course of his life) while Journey Continuedtakes its departure from that time onwards. He also wrote a biography of his friends Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Hofmeyr), and Geoffrey Clayton (Apartheid and the Archbishop). Another literary form that interested him throughout his life was poetry; the biographer Peter Alexander includes many of these poems in his biography of Paton.[3]
Publications of Paton's work include a volume of his travel writing, The Lost City of the Kalahari (2006), and a complete selection of his shorter writings, The Hero of Currie Road.
The Alan Paton Award for non-fiction is conferred annually in his honour.

Selected works[edit]

Quotes[edit]

  • "When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.”
  • "If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.”
  • "Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply... For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.”
  • "To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.”
  • "But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.”
  • I envision someday a great, peaceful South Africa in which the world will take pride, a nation in which each of many different groups will be making its own creative contribution.”
  • "God forgives us... who am I not to forgive?”

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Alan (Stewart) Paton (1903–1988)
  2. Jump up ^ "A mixture of ice and fulfilled desire – Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source". Mg.co.za. 14 November 2005. Retrieved 13 May 2010.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c Herbert Mitgang (13 April 1988). "Alan Paton, Author Who Fought Against Apartheid, Is Dead at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  4. Jump up ^ Alan Stewart Paton, South Africa (1903–1988), Liberal International website
  5. Jump up ^ from Post-Colonial African Writers, ed. by Pushipa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne, 1998
  6. Jump up ^ "Umuzi – The Hero of Currie Road – Detail Page". Umuzi-randomhouse.co.za. 27 May 2008. Retrieved 13 May 2010.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

Authority control