SOURCE: "Four Great Novels," in his In My Opinion: An Inquiry into the Contemporary Novel, Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1952, pp. 235-48.

In the following excerpt, Prescott opines that Cry, the Beloved Country is among the "great novels," praising Paton's artistic treatment of the story's themes.

The second modern novel which I dare call great is the finest I have ever read about the tragic plight of black-skinned people in a white man's world, Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Without any of the blind rage which has led so many writers on similar themes into bitterness and dogmatism, without any of the customary oversimplification and exaggerated melodrama, Mr. Paton wrote a beautiful and profoundly moving story, a story steeped in sadness and grief but radiant with hope and compassion. He contrived for it a special prose of his own which is both richly poetic and intensely emotional. Anyone who...