Knocking on the Door is a collection of short pieces written between 1923 and 1974 and hitherto unpublished or otherwise inaccessible. The chronological arrangement provides insight into the growth of Paton's moral vision, and the book is less valuable for the "creative" pieces, which are of minor importance in his canon, than for the articles and speeches, which are vital to an understanding of the tensions and contradictions which burden the life of South Africa and which provide much of the power of its best fiction. One piece, "Why I Write" (1974), is of great importance, not only as an expression of Paton's own artistic motives but as an expression of his sensitivity to the Afrikaners, who consider themselves Africans. It is a fact that anthologies or surveys of African literature almost never include works by white South Africans, who are apparently presumed to be European sojourners in a black continent...