Alan Paton’s novel, Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation (1984 [1948]), appeared around 70 years ago, and has been the subject of widely discrepant responses ever since its initial publication. It has sold millions of copies across the globe, appeared in multiple forms – abridged versions, translations, stage productions, as set work on school and university syllabi – becoming, in the process, arguably South Africa’s most canonical, transnational, novel. This article reflects on my own personal, family and academic history of engagement with the novel over almost four decades, and the differing readings and responses which it has elicited. In so doing, the article tries to shed light not just on Paton’s novel, but on questions of use, value and meaning in our encounters with literary texts which seem, insistently, to demand our renewed attention.

中文翻译：

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“那个男人巴顿”：一本书的个人历史

艾伦·帕顿 (Alan Paton) 的小说《哭泣，心爱的国家：荒凉中的安慰故事》(1984 [1948]) 出现在大约 70 年前，自首次出版以来一直是广泛不同的反应的主题。它已在全球售出数百万册，以多种形式出现——删节版、翻译、舞台作品，作为学校和大学教学大纲的背景作品——在此过程中成为南非最经典、最跨国、最新颖的作品。这篇文章反映了我个人、家庭和学术在近四年的时间里参与这部小说的历史，以及它引起的不同阅读和反应。在这样做的过程中，这篇文章不仅试图阐明佩顿的小说，还试图阐明在我们与文学文本相遇时的使用、价值和意义问题，这些文本似乎始终如一地，