Songs of Africa: Collected Poems, by Alan Paton (used)

As the author of Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton is well known for both his fictional and political writings — writings that are underscored by their lyrical and polemical grasp of the South African symbolic and political scene. Yet even though Paton has a lyrical inclination, his poetic reputation is not as well established as that of the novelist. This conundrum is further complicated by Paton's own admission: he says, at one point, that he is a poet who writes novels. In 1975 he was persuaded to publish his poetry in Knocking on the Door (David Philip) but even then only a handful of poems appear. In short, Paton's poetic voice and temperament have yet to be explored, for his poetry as a body in itself has, until now, remained uncollected, unpublished, and relatively unknown.

After his death in 1988, a large collection of unpublished poems was found by Anne Paton - in boxes, diaries, letters, and in between pages of old books. This led ultimately to a collective effort to assemble Paton's poetry under one title. To date, over 130 poems. songs and psalms have been collected.

Alan Paton, of course, was not unaware of his poetic gifts, and had planned to produce a book of poetry between 1948 and 1951. What happened to that effort is hard to say, but in a letter to his friend Aubrey Burns he says that he is putting a book of poetry together under the heading "Songs of Africa". This collection is, in a sense, the fulfilment of that earlier promise.

Condition: like new