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This interview with Alan
Paton by Roy Holland has
never, until now, been
published. The interview
took place on June 19
and June 20, 1973, when
Holland was a guest in
Paton’s home, Lintrose,
at Bothas Hill, Kloof,
Natal. It provides many
insights into Paton’s
life, his political
involvement as the
founder of the Liberal
party in South Africa,
and his writings.
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ALAN PATON SPEAKING
Book Description ALAN PATON, who died on April 12th 1988 at the age of 85, was not just the author of South Africa's best-selling political novel, Cry the Beloved Country. He was a founder of the now defunct Liberal party and its national president for most of its 15-year existence until it expired in 1968. This interview with Alan Paton by Roy Holland has never, until now, been published. The interview took place on June 19 and June 20, 1973, when Holland was a guest in Paton’s home at Bothas Hill, Kloof, Natal. The name of Paton’s house was Lintrose. Therefore, these interviews are called The Lintrose Conversations. The recorded topics were many and varied: about Paton’s political activities as well as his professional and personal life, but mainly about his work. During his stay Holland was impressed by Alan Paton’s concern to wake him gently by bringing tea each morning to his bedroom at about a quarter past seven! It is thanks to Sony that the interview in this book exists at all. The original tape recordings, after some years, seemed to have become stuck together and would not play. When Roy Holland sent them to Japan, Sony fixed them and completely re-recorded a new set of tapes for him, at no cost, just in the interest of research.
Roy Holland was born in Birmingham. He went to Africa in 1966 to teach in the universities of the Boleswa countries. In 1971 he went to Greece for three years. He and his family lived on the island of Levkas for six months, the Gulf of Corinth for a similar period, and in Corfu for a little over two years. He wrote full-time until 1974, when he returned to the U.K. and worked on a research project until returning to Africa in 1977. Thereafter he lived in Southern Africa and worked in universities in Zimbabwe, Lebowa and Venda. He was Professor of English at the University of the North, the University of Venda, as well as Dean of the Faculty of Arts in the later 80's. He retired early to write full-time, and now lives in Ledbury, Herefordshire.
Other works by Roy Holland:
A young man in Birmingham, in the sixties, escapes the
humdrum mundanity of life through fantasies, tries to find
himself, and finally escapes his dead-end lifestyle by
gaining a place at a university.
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Roy
Holland
9780955974144