Mary Benson (campaigner) Mary Benson (campaigner) Mary Benson (8 December 1919 – 19 June 2000) was a South African civil rights campaigner and author. Born in 1919 in Pretoria, Benson served in the South African Women's Army during World War II. After the war, she was secretary to film director David Lean. Benson became acquainted with the author Alan Paton, and read his novel "Cry, the beloved country" (1948), whose main theme was racial discrimination in South Africa. This affected her greatly, and she became a campaigner for the rights of black people there. She worked with Michael Scott (who, in 1946, was
Up the Country (novel) Up the Country (novel) Up the Country : A Tale of Early Australian Squattocracy (1928) is a novel by Australian writer Miles Franklin. Originally published as by "Brent of Bin Bin", this novel forms the first part of a trilogy, followed by "Ten Creeks Run" (1930) and "Cockatoos" (1955). The novel is set somewhere in the southeast of New South Wales, in Snowy River country, and follows the story of two families, the Pooles and the Mazeres, and their neighbors. In a major review of the novel in "The Brisbane Courier" literary critic Nettie Palmer noted that this book helped