Cry, the Beloved Country 1st Edition by Alan Paton (Scribner)

A wonderful, profound, and very beautiful book. As other reviewers have noted, it was written by a white South African in the late 1940's, and is set in that time and place, just before apartheid was officially imposed. It tells the story of Stephen Kumalo, a black minister from the countryside, who travels to Johannesburg to find his sister, and his son, both of whom have have vanished into the great city. He finds them, but his son has killed a white man, and his sister is a prostitute. The full story is described elsewhere; suffice it to say that it ends tragically, but with redeeming grace.

The language of this book is amazing, poetic but also critical in the development of character. In large part the book is a love song to the land of South Africa, a place of great natural beauty which has been badly treated by man. But the language is also wonderful in expressing different personalities, different experiences, and different ways of thinking -- it changes and shifts with the subject.

The plot and characterization are very powerful. The people are rounded, neither all good nor all bad, and each speaks with his or her own voice. The story pulls one forward with the minister on his journey -- I read this almost without stopping. To a degree, some elements may be jarring for some readers today, particularly readers of color. The book was written almost seventy years ago, and it was written by a white South African, perhaps with the intention of reaching other white South African.

The ideas are compelling, and go far beyond the political. For me, the novel as a whole is about many things, about forgiveness and redemption and the tragedy of death and the miracle of new life The politics, of course, can't help but dominate the foreground. It is sad to think that the subjugation of South Africa's blacks continued for most of the next 50 years. But it is also inspriring to remember that apartheid ended without a civil war, and with reconciliation rather than revenge. A great book, worthy of its subject..