Alan Paton
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Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African author.
He was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, the son of a minor civil servant. He studied a B.Sc. at the University of the Natal in his hometown, followed by a diploma in education. After graduating, he taught at a high school in Ixopo, where he met his future wife, and then at another school back in Pietermaritzburg. He served as the principal of the Diepkloof Reformatory for young offenders from 1935 to 1948, where he introduced controversial reforms of a progressive slant. In 1953 he founded the South African Liberal Party. He was noted for his opposition to the Apartheid system.
Among his works are Debbie Go Home (1961), Tales from a Troubled Land (1965) (short story collections), Cry, The Beloved Country (1948) and Too Late the Phalarope (1953). Cry, The Beloved Country has been filmed twice (in 1951 and 1995) and was the basis for the Broadway show Lost in the Stars (adaptation by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt Weill).
See also
- Liberalism
- Contributions to liberal theory
- List of African writers
- List of South Africans – In 2004 Paton was voted 59th in the Top 100 Great South Africans
External links
- The Alan Paton Centre & Struggle Archives (http://www.library.unp.ac.za/paton/)
- Alan Paton – A short biography and bibliography (http://literature.kzn.org.za/lit/22.xml)