By Karon Winzenz
The UU Book Club will meet on Wednesday September 7 at 1:30 pm at UU to discuss Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. The meeting will be hosted and moderated by Ruth Potthoff. Please contact her at ruth5919@gmail.com or 920-743-6270 if you plan to attend.
Published in the USA in 1948, this novel played an essential role in alerting the world to the injustices toward native peoples in South Africa. Cry, the Beloved Country is a social protest against the structures of a society that would soon lead to the official adoption of apartheid. Paton attempts to create an unbiased and objective view of the dichotomies this entails; he depicts the Whites as affected by ‘native crime’, while the Blacks suffer from social instability and moral issues due to the breakdown of the tribal system. It deals with many of the problems of South Africa including the degrading of the land reserved for the natives, the disintegration of the tribal community, native crime and the flight to the urban areas. (Paraphrased from Wikipedia)
The title for the Oct. 6 Book Group is The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland led by Liesbeth Fickes.