Ah but Your Land Is Beautiful [Paperback]

Alan Paton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 1996

For millions of readers worldwide, Alan Paton's books have vividly described life in contemporary South Africa. Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful revolves around the everyday experiences of a group of men and women whose lives reflect the human costs of maintaining a racially divided society. Writing at the peak of his powers, Paton delivers a masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'As vigorous and as exquisitely written as anything he has produced' New York Times Book Review 'Vivid and telling...Alan Paton may have come closer to conveying the essence of South African history than anyone else' Washington Post Book World --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Alan Paton, a native son of South Africa, was born in Pietermaritzburg, in the province of Natal, in 1903. While his mother was a third-generation South African, his father was a Scots Presbyterian who arrived in South Africa just before the Boer War.

Alan Paton attended college in Pietermaritzburg where he studied science and wrote poetry in his off-hours. After graduating, he wrote two novels and then promptly destroyed them. He devoted himself to writing poetry once again, and later, in his middle years, he wrote serious essays for liberal South African magazines, much the same way his character, Arthur Jarvis, does in Cry, the Beloved Country.

Paton's initial career was spent teaching in schools for the sons of rich, white South Africans, But at thirty, when he was teaching in Pietermaritzburg, he suffered a severe attack of enteric fever, and in the time he had to reflect upon his life, he decided that he did not want to spend his life teaching the sons of the rich.

Paton was a great admirer of Hofmeyr, a man who dared to tell his fellow Afrikaners that they must give up "thinking with the blood," and "maintain the essential value of human personality as something independent of race or color." Paton wrote to Hofmeyr and asked him for a job. To his surprise, he was offered a job as principal of Diepkloof Reformatory, a huge prison school for delinquent black boys, on the edge of Johannesburg. It was a penitentiary, with barbed wire and barred cells, and under Hofmeyr's inspiring leadership, Paton transformed it. Geraniums replaced the barbed wire, the bars were torn down, and soon the feeling in the place changed.

He worked at Diepkloof for ten years, and though it was certainly a fertile period, at the end of it Paton felt so strongly that he needed a change, that he sold his life insurance policies to finance a prison-study trip that took him to Scandinavia, England, and the United States. It was during this time that he unexpectedly wrote his first published novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. It was in Norway that he began it, after a friendly stranger had taken him to see the rose window in the cathedral of Trondheim by torchlight, Paton, no doubt inspired, sat down in his hotel room and wrote the whole first chapter. He had no idea what the rest of the story would be, but it formed itself while he traveled. Parts were written in Stockholm, Trondheim, Oslo, London, and the United States. It was finished in San Francisco. Cry, the Beloved Country was first published in 1948 by Charles Scribner's Sons. It stands as the single most important novel in South African literature.

Alan Paton died in 1988 in South Africa.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1st Charles Scribner's Sons Paperback Ed edition (January 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068482583X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684825830
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #882,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > African > Central & South African

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paton at his best., October 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ah but Your Land Is Beautiful (Paperback)

"Ah But Your Land is Beautiful" is far and away one of the best books written about the old South Africa, and in many ways still applies very much so to today's "Rainbow Nation." Taking the reader into all of the minds in South Africa at the dawn of apartheid, this gripping multi-viewpoint docu-fiction is an amazing experience for those with everything from a little to an extensive background in South African history. It is a must for anyone who was captivated by "Cry, the Beloved Country," and in my opinion is his best work.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book!, June 9, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Ah but Your Land Is Beautiful (Paperback)

I finished reading Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful quite a while ago, but I'd read it again it I hadn't borrowed it from the library. While you can't always tell which character is speaking, I find that that is good because it shows the complexity of views in South Africa in the 1950s. When you start reading a new section, you don't think, "Oh, that's just what Hugh Mainwaring thinks." You realise that the statements were actually what real people, not just characters, thought. Especially in this day and age, I think that this book helps a little to get in to the mind of terrorists today, even though the issues at stake are markedly different. I would recommend this to everyone, especially those who enjoy history.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Holy Cow!, May 23, 2009

By 

Joe Advocate - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ah but Your Land Is Beautiful (Paperback)

As others mentioned, this book is confusing, and after a while, I forgot about who was speaking and let it dawn on me. Reading other reviews, I now guess that he wanted readers to be confused and to hear the viewpoints and react to them before we know who made them...who knows.

Either way, I loved this book. It has truly taught me something that I had thought about for decades...specifically, how can people do the cruel things they do to others...Paton's message to me is that if we are hurt and threatened, we then lash out at someone else to express our pain. I won't share any more because it's a review of the book, not an essay.

His writing style is amazing to me...the emotional quality and humanity he conveys, and the depth of understanding of human nature compares with Shakespeare, but much warmer in my opinion- and he is equally understanding of every one of his characters, regardless of their situation.

If I could emulate this writing style successfully, I would become a writer just to do it. Although I am still a little confused, I love this book, and it has fundamentally altered my understanding of human nature...it makes me want to be a more understanding human.