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| Edition: | Scribner (Hardcover) |
| Author: | Alan Paton |
| Published: | December 2003 |
| Pages: | 320 |
| ISBN 10: | 074326195X |
| New: | $14.21 (30) |
| Used: | $0.01 (45) |
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Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel by South African author Alan Paton. It was first published in New York in 1948 by Charles Scribner's Sons and in London by Jonathan Cape. The protagonist is Stephen Kumalo, a black Anglican priest from a rural Natal town, who is searching for his son Absalom in the city of Johannesburg. Two motion-picture adaptations of the book have been made, the first in 1951 and the second in 1995.
Plot summary
The novel opens in a small village in Ixopo(Ndotsheni), where the black pastor Stephen Kumalo receives a telegram from the priest Theophilus Msimangu in Johannesburg. Msimangu urges Kumalo to come to the city to help his sister Gertrude, because she is ill. Kumalo goes to Johannesburg to help Gertrude and to find his son Absalom, who had gone to the city to look for Gertrude but never came home. When he gets to the city, Kumalo learns that Gertrude has taken up a life of prostitution and beer brewing, and is now drinking heavily. She agrees to return to the village with her young son. Kumalo embarks on the search for his son, first seeing his brother John, a carpenter who has become involved in the politics of South Africa. Kumalo and Msimangu follow Absalom's trail only to learn that Absalom has been in a reformatory and impregnated a young woman. Shortly thereafter, Kumalo learns that his son has been arrested for the murder of Arthur Jarvis (who was an engenier), a white activist for racial justice and son of Kumalo's neighbour James Jarvis.
Jarvis learns of his son's death and comes with his family to Johannesburg. Jarvis and his son had been distant, and now the father begins to know his son through his writings. Through reading his son's essays, Jarvis decides to take up his son's work on behalf of South Africa's black population.
Absalom is sentenced to death for the murder of Arthur Jarvis. Before his father returns to Ixopo, Absalom marries the girl who is carrying his child, and she joins Kumalo's family. Kumalo returns to his village with his daughter-in-law and nephew, having found that Gertrude ran away on the night before their departure.
Back in Ixopo, Kumalo makes a futile visit to the tribe's chief in order to discuss changes that must be made to help the barren village. Help arrives, however, when Jarvis becomes involved in the work. He arranges to have a dam built and hires an agricultural demonstrator to implement new farming methods.
The novel ends on the night of Absalom's execution, which finds Kumalo praying on a mountainside as dawn breaks over the valley. The book ends with a tone of rejuvenation and hope for the country.
