How do historical realities influence Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country

•the threat of starvation that Ndotsheni experiences in Cry, the Beloved Country reflects the reality of the famine that brought South Africa to the brink of civil war in the 1940s

•Foreign activists and crusaders came to South Africa to fight for justice in the 1940s, and this is reflected in the novel through the figure of Msimangu, who was not born in South Africa

•Absalom's fate reveals how racist police officers twisted fair and impartial laws in order to promote injustice and discriminatory practices during the apartheid era

•Crime was common in Johannesburg in the 1940s , and this is reflected in the novel when Kumalo is robbed when he first arrives in the city