This book is about the experiences of a black pastor named Stephen Kumalo in racist South Africa during the 1940's. Cry, The Beloved Country is a novel that offers a vicarious experience of the social problems of South Africa, especially those that concern blacks. Black people of South Africa back then faced stringent racial segregation, lived in abject poverty, were not educated, and were driven out of their native homeland by white people. Alan Paton, the author, so vividly described these problems that one can almost feel how it was like to be a black person in South Africa in the 1940's.

The protagonist Stephen Kumalo one day receives a letter from Reverend Msimangu of Johannesburg that says Kumalo's sister Gertrude is very ill. Msimangu urged Kumalo to come to Johannesburg right away. Kumalo has other family members living in Johannesburg: his brother John, and his only son...