Alan Paton

Alan Stewart Paton was a South African writer and anti-apartheid activist. His works include the novels Cry, the Beloved country, Too Late the Plalarope and the narrative poem The Wasteland. Alan Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa, in 1903. After some years as a science teacher in white high schools, he became principal of Diepkloof Reformatory. The publication of Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948 made him famous and he planned to become a full-time writer, but was drawn into the political arena. In 1953 he became the first president of the Liberal Party of South Africa, which was forced to disband in 1968. Paton was a public figure hated by the apartheid government, but admired by many in South Africa and abroad. He received numerous awards and honorary degrees. Much of what he believed in is now enshrined in South Africa’s Bill of Rights. He died in 1988.