Tales From a Troubled Land

by Alan Paton

Overview

From Simon & Schuster, Tales from a Troubled Land is Alan Paton's novel about the injustices of South Africa.

With a mixture of compassion and despair, this collection of ten short stories by the distinguished author of Cry, the Beloved Country speaks eloquently yet incisively of the injustices of the author's native land, South Africa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780684825847
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	01/03/1996
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Alan Paton, a native son of South Africa, was born in Pietermaritzburg, in the province of Natal, in 1903. Paton's initial career was spent teaching in schools for the sons of rich, white South Africans, But at thirty, he suffered a severe attack of enteric fever, and in the time he had to reflect upon his life, he decided that he did not want to spend his life teaching the sons of the rich. He got a job as principal of Diepkloof Reformatory, a huge prison school for delinquent black boys, on the edge of Johannesburg. He worked at Diepkloof for ten years, and at the end of it Paton felt so strongly that he needed a change, that he sold his life insurance policies to finance a prison-study trip that took him to Scandinavia, England, and the United States. It was during this time that he unexpectedly wrote his first published novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. It stands as the single most important novel in South African literature. Alan Paton died in 1988 in South Africa.

Date of Birth:

January 11, 1903

Date of Death:

April 12, 1988

Place of Birth:

Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa

Place of Death:

Durban, Natal, South Africa

Education:

Maritzburg College, 1918; B.S., Natal University College, 1924

Table of Contents

	Life for a Life	9
	Sponono	25
	Ha'penny	51
	The Waste Land	58
	The Worst Thing of His Life	62
	The Elephant Shooter	69
	Debbie Go Home	77
	Death of a Tsotsi	95
	The Divided House	107
	A Drink in the Passage	117