Ah, but Your Land Is Beautiful
by Alan Paton
At a glance:
- Author: Alan Paton
- First Published: 1981
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1952-1958
- Setting: South Africa
- Characters: Prem Bodasingh, Robert Mansfield, Hugh Mainwaring, Jan Woltemade Fischer, Gabriel Van Onselen, Emmanuel Nene
- Genres: Long fiction, Novel
- Subjects: 1950's, Discrimination, Racism, Twentieth century, Protests or demonstrations, South Africa or South Africans, Apartheid
- Locales: Africa, South Africa
Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful, like the earlier works of Alan Paton, reveals the author’s great love for his native land and its people. He writes of a grand part of the world, a country of which visitors say, “Ah, but your land is beautiful.” For Paton, however, the well-meant praise for South Africa, especially Natal, where the novelist resides, has a fearsome irony: while the land is undeniably beautiful, the lives its people lead are full of prejudice, of stress, of fear, and even of terror. Each individual, regardless of race, has to learn how to live...
(The entire page is 1502 words.)
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