The Principal: Alan Paton's Years at Diepkloof Reformatory

(Johannesburg: Penguin, 1997). 175 x 110 mm; laminated pictorial wraps; pp. (vi) + 245. Cover very slightly rubbed; regular, light browning internally. Very good condition. The book of the SABC 3 series, based on original works by Alan Paton. "In 1935 Alan Paton and his wife Dorrie arrived at the doors of the Diepkloof Reformatory for black boys outside Johannesburg where Paton was to take up the position of principal. Until then Diepkloof had operated within a system of fear and deprivation and the new principal's methods of rehabilitation were revolutionary for the time. The challenge produced both triumphs and bitter disappointments, not only professionally but in his personal life as well, when an affair with a woman ten years his junior threatened to break up his marriage. His thirteen years at Diepkloof were a seminal period in Paton's life. The experience led to his writing the great South African novel Cry, the Beloved Country." .