TALES FROM A TROUBLED LAND

This collection of short stories of life in the Republic of South Africa cuts more to the quick than a thousand exegeses on the tensions and strife in the Dark Continent. Truth may be stranger than fiction, yet fiction certainly enlarges it and makes truth more recognizable and realizable. What Paton sees in these short stories is essentially the age old conflict of man against man, brother against brother, and against sister and father. This is the posture of Africa today and this is the set for the artist's design. Paton weaves the fabric of human valor and love and failure within this background of white against black. Each story is complete in itself and poignant characters with a story of their own as well as Dark Africa emerge. Yet this is not a sociologist's book. Those who prize the short story will certainly be touched by Paton's dark and white man moving in a world in which each carries the burden of the other on his heart.