Alan Paton

Early career

Paton served as the principal of Diepkloof Reformatory for young (native African) offenders from 1935 to 1949. A year before he started as principal, the South African parliament transferred reformatory institutions for juveniles from the Department of Prisons to the Union Education Department, opening up principal positions at several reformatories. Paton expressed interest in a principal position to his close friend Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (1894–1948), a politician, who advised Paton to apply to them. Ultimately, Paton was appointed to principal at Diepkloof at the age of 32 on July 1, 1935. His main task, as expressed by Hofmeyer, was the transform Diepkloof from a prison to a school.

He introduced controversial progressive reforms, including policies on open dormitories, work permits, and home visitation. The young men were initially housed in closed dormitories; once they had proven themselves trustworthy, they would be transferred to open dormitories within the compound. Men who showed great trustworthiness would be permitted to work outside the compound. In some cases, men were permitted to reside outside the compound under the supervision of a care family. Fewer than 5% of the 10,000 men who were given home leave during Paton's years at Diepkloof ever broke their trust by failing to return.

Later career

Paton volunteered for military service with the British Commonwealth forces during World War II, but was refused by the South African authorities. After the war he took a journey, at his own expense, to tour correctional facilities across the world. He toured Scandinavia, Britain, continental Europe, Canada, and the United States. During his time in Norway, he began work on his seminal novel Cry, the Beloved Country, which he completed over the course of his journey, finishing it on Christmas Eve in San Francisco in 1946. There, he met Aubrey and Marigold Burns, who read his manuscript and found a publisher: the editor Maxwell Perkins, noted for editing novels of Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, guided Paton's first novel through publication with Scribner's.

In 1953, Paton published the novel Too Late the Phalarope.

On 11 January 2018, a Google Doodle honored the author on what would have been his 115th birthday.

Opposition to apartheid

In 1948, four months after the publication of Cry, the Beloved Country, the right-wing National Party was elected to power in South Africa. Black South Africans did not receive the vote until 1994 so were unable to oppose this directly. The legislature soon passed laws to formally establish apartheid, a system of racial segregation.

Paton, together with Margaret Ballinger, Edgar Brookes, and Leo Marquard, formed the Liberal Association in early 1953. On 9 May 1953, it became the Liberal Party of South Africa, with Paton as a founding vice-president, which fought against the apartheid laws introduced by the National Party government. Alan and his wife Dorrie at times sought shelter from the police, at the safe house of Colin Webb.

Paton served as President of the LPSA until the government forced its dissolution in 1968 with the Prohibition of Political Interference Act which forbade political collaboration between different racial groups. Paton was a friend of Bernard Friedman, founder of the Progressive Party. Paton's writer colleague Laurens van der Post, who had moved to England in the 1930s, helped the party in many ways. The South African Secret Police were aware that van der Post was providing money to Paton and the LPSA, but they could not stop it by legal procedures.

Paton advocated peaceful opposition to apartheid, as did many others in the party. Yet, some LPSA members took a more violent stance − the African Resistance Movement (ARM). Consequently some stigma attached to the party, not just within South Africa, but also outside the country. The South African government confiscated Paton's passport when he returned from New York City in 1960, where he had been presented with the annual Freedom Award. His passport was not returned to him for ten years, making it impossible for him to travel to speak to other countries.

Paton retired to Botha's Hill, where he resided until his death. He is honored at the Hall of Freedom of the Liberal International organization.

Other works

Paton continued to explore racial themes and apartheid in his second and third novels, Too Late the Phalarope (1953) and Ah, but Your Land Is Beautiful (1981), and his collected short stories, Tales From a Troubled Land (1961).

Ah, but Your Land Is Beautiful was built on parallel life stories, letters, speeches, news and records in legal proceedings. Its fictional characters interacted with some historic figures, such as Donald Molteno, Albert Luthuli and Hendrik Verwoerd. The novel is classified as historical fiction. It gives an accurate account of the resistance movement in South Africa during the 1960s.

"Paton attempts to imbue his characters with a humanity not expected of them. In this novel, for example, we meet the supposedly obdurate Afrikaner who contravenes the infamous Immorality Act. There are other Afrikaners, too, who are led by their consciences and not by rules, and regulations promulgated by a faceless, monolithic parliament."

He also wrote biographies of his friends Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Hofmeyr), and Geoffrey Clayton (Apartheid and the Archbishop). Another literary form that interested him throughout his life was poetry.

Personal life

While at Ixopo, Paton met Dorrie Francis Lusted. They married in 1928, and remained together until her death from emphysema in 1967. Their life together is documented in Paton's memoir Kontakion for You Departed, (1969). They had two sons, Jonathan and David.

In 1969, Paton remarried, to Anne Hopkins. This marriage lasted until Paton's death in 1988.

Paton was a Christian. His faith was one of the reasons he was so strongly opposed to apartheid.

Adaptations

Cry, the Beloved Country was twice adapted for films, in 1951 and 1995. It was the basis for the Broadway musical Lost in the Stars, which was adapted by American playwright Maxwell Anderson with music by Kurt Weill.