Talk:Alan Paton

Date of death
Hm. My copy of Cry, the Beloved Country says that Paton died in 1992. Where did we get 1988? --User:Jenmoa 19:03, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Odd. 1988 according to here & my E.Britannica. –Hajor 20:40, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * ALAN PATON, AUTHOR AND APARTHEID FOE, DIES OF CANCER AT 85
 * By HERBERT MITGANG
 * 51 words
 * 12 April 1988
 * New York Times Abstracts
 * Pg. 1, Col. 6
 * English
 * c. 1988 New York Times Company


 * Alan Paton, South African author and opponent of apartheid, dies at age 85; excerpt from recent interview in which Paton reflected on impact of his 1948 book Cry, the Beloved Country; his photo

Reggie Perrin (talk) 13:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Error?
Less than 1% never returned? Is this a typing error? If not, it would suggest a very high reoffending rate.


 * Never returned from home leave - special trips home while still serving time. Nothing to do with reoffending.

Seeking a book
i wouldlike to find a book i read wha he wrote of his time at diepkloof i think there was a story on tv about that aswell i can not remember the name of the book or the tv show i would like to purchase this book if possible

Vandalism
I am profoundly shocked and upset that this site has been subject to so much vandalism - like shitting on your grandmother's carpet!! I have endeavoured to restore something like the original (pre-vandalism) version - and stndardised capitalisation a bit from the "shout" all-caps form!!

Soundofmusicals 05:48, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism
Many paragraphs from this site seem to be exact word-for-word replice\as from another online biography of Alan Paton, http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apaton.htm. If this page has been copied from another website, it should be fixed or removed immeadietly. Could someone check this apparent plagerism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.55.40.102 (talk) 16:35, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Just going over that link I agree that it may be an uncredited source article but I haven't been able to find any word-for-word lifting (at least not from a quick read through). Could you please point out the specific paragraphs at issue? Reggie Perrin (talk) 20:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, the "family" section seems to be lifted directly from the link (summarized a bit). I'll take a stab at rewording it (while also putting in a credit). Are there any other problematic paragraphs? Reggie Perrin (talk) 20:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I've reworked parts of the article and used the aforementioned link as a cited source. The article needs more sources though (and better ones, I can't even tell who is the author of the source we're using at present - it looks like an "author's biography" from a publisher but I can't find a citation). Reggie Perrin (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Finnish Novel Titles
I have removed the Finnish titles of the novels - it did not seem to be any reason apart from the origin of the page having come from a Finnish source. Hope this OK. --217.43.192.181 (talk) 15:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Critique
Why is there no critique against him? --41.14.118.198 (talk) 11:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Chronology of Paton's Life
Born

January 11, 1903

Died

April 12, 1988

Obituaries


Facts mentioned in Times obituary

Alan Paton,
 * the South African author
 * and political leader
 * 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country aroused many of his countrymen and much of the world against apartheid,
 * died of throat cancer early yesterday at his home outside Durban, his wife, Anne, said.
 * He was 85 years old.


 * Mr. Paton worked against the South African system of racial separation in his writings
 * and by serving as head of the Liberal Party, which was eventually disbanded under South African legislation outlawing multi-racial parties.


 * He stuck resolutely to his liberal convictions
 * but in recent years came to be regarded as a conservative by anti-apartheid organizations
 * because he opposed isolating South Africa economically by such means as government sanctions and the ending of investment by groups and companies.
 * He believed such actions would be self-defeating and harm the very people they were supposed to help.

The Intent Was to Influence

In an interview last month with John D. Battersby of The New York Times at the novelist's home in Botha's Hill,
 * Mr. Paton reflected on the significance of Cry, the Beloved Country, four decades after the book first appeared.
 * It has sold more than 15 million copies in 20 languages, and
 * was also also made into a movie filmed in South Africa in 1952, starring Canada Lee.


 * He added that he still had mixed emotions about
 * the musical version by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, titled Lost in the Stars,
 * that opened on Broadway in October 1949 and that ran for 281 performances.
 * The musical tragedy is now having a limited revival by the New York Theater Company at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan.

Invitations Refused


 * There was a time when Mr. Paton was considered an enemy of the authorities.
 * The Government withdrew his passport in 1960 when he returned from a visit to Britain and the United States. No reason was given, but it was generally believed that the action was taken because Mr. Paton had attacked Government policies while he was abroad.

Infobox for Paton's article
This section is for the developing of an infobox for Paton.

pathetic phrasing
"...There are other Afrikaners, too, who are led by their consciences and not by rules, and regulations promulgated by a faceless, monolithic parliament." (from Post-Colonial African Writers, ed. by Pushipa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne, 1998)..." Can we just leave out such pathetic phrasing and replace this with some more neutral wording? --41.151.241.113 (talk) 14:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Update needed for the publication etc. of Cry, The Beloved Country
I have been reading the page on Alan Paton, author of Cry, the beloved country. It states that he completed the book in San Francisco in December 1946. = quote from page "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.[1]" This cannot be true because I am holding Penguin Modern Classics copy of the book which has the following:  Copyright Alan Paton 1944, first published Jonathan Cape, 1944, First published in Penguin Books 1958., reprinted 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966 (twice) 1969. No ISBN Number. This probably needs to be corrected on the Alan Paton pages please.. There is no ISBN number in the Penguin Modern Classics copy and the details page does NOT specify the exact edition. But I assume it may be a 1969 version because the frontispiece includes the note that the Liberal Party in South Africa was disbanded in May 1968 'under persistent official pressure' But this version was printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney ltd, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK, and set in Linotype. Front Cover illustration: detail from 'Three Boys' by Marianne Podlashuc (photo by UCA studios) Back cover: Sold in UK for 20 p = 4/-, Australia $0.70, New Zealand $0.65, South Africa R0.50, For copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the USA or Canada - details from back cover.

So what now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.71.50.98 (talk) 19:20, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

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External links modified
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The Waste Land
Every publication I've seen about Alan Paton's work has this work titled as "The Waste Land", not "The Wasteland". It is also not a narrative poem. Is this a confusion between Paton's and T.S. Elliot's work? Seokzine (talk) 18:21, 2 April 2024 (UTC)