In 1959 he wrote "The Last Journey," a play about the missionary David Livingston, as well as The Christian Approach to Racial Problems in the Modern World.
Paton also published several other non-fiction works, including The Land and the People of South Africa (1955), Hope for South Africa (1958) and The People Wept (1958). During his term with the Liberal Party, Paton gave evidence to mitigate the treason sentence for Nelson Mandela during his 1964 trial. Paton eventually became National President of the Liberal Party until 1968, when the government forces the Liberal Party to disband under the Prohibition of Interference Act that prohibited non-racial political parties. During this time, Paton began to take a more active interest in politics, becoming the vice-president of the Liberal Party and, in 1956, the party chairman.
His second novel, Too Late the Phalarope, was published in 1953 while Paton worked at a tuberculosis settlement. Cry, the Beloved Country was soon adapted into a musical, "Lost in the Stars," by composer Kurt Weill and a film directed by Zoltan Korda on whose screenplay Paton contributed. The publication of this novel, which was a great success, allowed Paton to resign as principal of the reformatory to devote himself fully to his writing. Several months after the publication of the novel, the National Party came to power in South Africa and instituted apartheid. Paton wrote Cry, the Beloved Country, which was published in February of 1948, during a time in which he studied penal institutions in Europe, the United States and Canada. During this period, Paton continued to work on behalf of race relations: in 1942 he is nominated to the Anglican Diocesan Commission to inquire into church and race relations in South Africa, while he also wrote a series of articles concerning crime and punishment and penal reform for Forum. In 1935 he left his teaching position to become the principal of the Diepkloof Reformatory for delinquent urban African boys near Johannesburg. Even early in his career Paton took a strong interest in race relations, joining the South African Institute of Race Relations in 1930. A second son, Jonathan, was born in 1936. In 1928 Paton married Doris Olive Francis, and two years later they had their first son, David. For three years he taught at Ixopo High School, then moved to Pietermaritzburg to teach at Maritzburg College. After leaving school, Paton became a science teacher in 1925.
After graduating from Maritzburg College in 1918, he studied at the University of Natal, where he graduated with distinction in physics.
Alan Paton was born on Januin Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
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