Alan Stewart Paton (11th January 1903 - 12th April 1988), South African author and founder in 1953 of the South African Liberal Party, noted for his opposition to the Apartheid system. He was also principal of the Diepkloof Reformatory for young offenders (1935 - 1947). Among his works are Debbie Go Home (1961), Tales from a Troubled Land (1965) (short story collections), Cry, The Beloved Country (1948) and Too Late the Phalarope (1953). Cry, The Beloved Country was filmed twice (1951, 1995), and was the basis for the Broadway piece Lost in the Stars (adaptation by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt Weill).

See also

• List of African writers
• Liberalism
• List of liberal thinkers
• List of South Africans - In 2004 he was voted 59th in the Top 100 Great South Africans