South African poetry is best known for his "Unto Dust" and "In the Withaak's Shade", capturing a portrait of Afrikaner storytelling skills and social attitudes. Bosman also wrote poetry, with a predominantly satirical tone. Alan Paton’s world-renowned and highly poetic novel "Cry, The Beloved Country", came into publication, just four months after the separatist National Party came to power in South Africa. Although Paton was most prolific in other literary genre, poetry was a form that interested him throughout his life, as documented in Peter Alexander's biography of him. Some of the best known poets of this violently oppressive and politically turbulent period
Cry, the Beloved Country American writer Maxwell Anderson and music composed by the German emigre Kurt Weill. In the remote village of Ndotsheni, in the Natal province of eastern South Africa, the Reverend Stephen Kumalo receives a letter from a fellow minister summoning him to Johannesburg. He is needed there, the letter says, to help his sister, Gertrude, who the letter says has fallen ill. Kumalo undertakes the difficult and expensive journey to the city in the hopes of aiding Gertrude and of finding his son, Absalom, who traveled to Johannesburg from Ndotsheni and never returned. In Johannesburg, Kumalo is warmly welcomed by Msimangu,