The Beloved Country

“Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that’s the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire.”—Alan Paton Alan Paton wrote these words in 1948, around the same time that the National Party of South Africa set in motion laws that would establish apartheid.