Too Late The Phalarope

by Alan Paton

Overview

From the author of Cry, The Beloved Country comes a powerful novel of terror and remorse “written in exquisitely balanced prose” (Chicago Sun-Times) about a white policeman who has an affair with a native girl in South Africa.

After violating his country’s ironclad law governing relationships between the races, a young white South African police lieutenant must struggle alone against the censure of an inflexible society, his family, and himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780684818955
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	01/03/1996
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	1,143,934
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Alan Paton, a native son of South Africa, was born in Pietermaritzburg, in the province of Natal, in 1903. Paton's initial career was spent teaching in schools for the sons of rich, white South Africans, But at thirty, he suffered a severe attack of enteric fever, and in the time he had to reflect upon his life, he decided that he did not want to spend his life teaching the sons of the rich. He got a job as principal of Diepkloof Reformatory, a huge prison school for delinquent black boys, on the edge of Johannesburg. He worked at Diepkloof for ten years, and at the end of it Paton felt so strongly that he needed a change, that he sold his life insurance policies to finance a prison-study trip that took him to Scandinavia, England, and the United States. It was during this time that he unexpectedly wrote his first published novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. It stands as the single most important novel in South African literature. Alan Paton died in 1988 in South Africa.

Date of Birth:

January 11, 1903

Date of Death:

April 12, 1988

Place of Birth:

Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa

Place of Death:

Durban, Natal, South Africa

Education:

Maritzburg College, 1918; B.S., Natal University College, 1924