Alan Paton's (1903-88) Cry, the Beloved Country was published in the same year, 1948, that apartheid was initiated. Although it does not deal directly with the subject, its moving plea for tolerance and justice among the races established its preeminent claim as an antiapartheid work. The novel consists of three sections, each one viewing its events from a different perspective. In Book I, the point of view is that of Stephen Kuvalo, an African priest in a rural community. Kuvalo travels to Johannesburg to care for his ailing sister and to find his son Absalom, who has moved to the city and dropped out of touch with his family. The city, Kuvalo discovers, is a powder keg of racial tension as a result of the early applications of apartheid. Kuvalo is devastated to learn that Absalom has been arrested for the murder of a white man during an attempted robbery.

In Book II, the story is seen from the point of view of James Jarvis, the father of the murdered man, Arthur Jarvis, who, ironically, had been working for the reform of injustices against blacks. This section ends with the conviction and execution of Absalom. In Book III, Kumalo returns to his village, where his bishop informs him that he can no longer serve in his parish. However, the son of the murdered man, operating with approval of his grandfather, visits Kumalo and establishes a friendship. James Jarvis, the grandfather, hires a farming instructor to help the village improve their agricultural output. The two fathers, united in grief, become friends.

The South African novelist Nadine Gordimer (1923- ) has devoted much of her writing life to the struggle against apartheid, an achievement that was recognized in 1990 when she was awarded the Nobel Prize. In the course of a long career that has spanned the rise and fall of apartheid and the government that sponsored it, her recurring theme has been the dilemma of the apolitical or moderate white person opposed to apartheid but inextricably caught up in its social fabric. The Conservationist (1974) is a particularly acute portrait of a man who, though trying to avoid racial politics, is drawn into its context and ultimately pays with his life for his willful ignorance. In Burger's Daughter (1979), the historical event constructs the identity of her heroine.

In July's People (1981) the revolutionary struggle has erupted into a full scale civil war. The Smales family--Bam, Maureen, and their two children--escape from a besieged city, thanks to their servant July, who brings them to his remote native village. Bam and Maureen (hers is the central consciousness through which the story is told) pride themselves on being white liberals, opposed to apartheid, and on being generous, open-minded employers of July. Once in the village, however, they begin to experience subtle shifts in the master-servant relationship. These reversals come to a head over the control of two objects: the jeep, in which they made their escape but in which they cannot risk riding openly, and Bam's shotgun, which he uses for hunting. Car and gun are two of the outward signs of white hegemony that Bam and Maureen have been unconscious of until they see them coming under July's control, and their reaction is one of panic. Bam, cut off from the familiar modes of expression and ownership that define a man in white society, grows increasingly weaker and lifeless. Maureen finds herself not accepted by the village women, in contrast to her children, who are easily assimilated. She tries to confront July, and the ensuing argument reveals the gap in understanding that has always been covered over in the past--for example, her recognition that she has never known or tried to find out July's real name, July being the name assigned him by whites. What she comes to realize is that she has been benefiting from a psychological apartheid that mirrors the larger social institution. Written with subtle grace and an acute political awareness, July's People is a powerful study of people caught at a time when "the old is dying and the new cannot be born."

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