We have partnered with a team of accredited tour guides who will be offering the Grey Street Writers and Alan Paton trails as half-day city tours. They will also be offering tourists the Rider Haggard trail – this is a more intensive, three day tour – taking in the KwaZulu-Natal Battlefields. Contact us for more info and to make bookings.
Paton’s Pietermaritzburg |
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Alan Paton is most famous as the author of the world-renowned novel, Cry, the beloved country. He also wrote two other novels, poetry, short stories, biographies, autobiographies and political articles. He was torn between being an author and a politician. He was a founder member of the Liberal Party of South Africa (LPSA) in 1953, its National Chairman from 1956 to 1958, and its National President from 1958 to 1968. He is also famous as a humanitarian, educationalist, a reformer of the juvenile justice system (from his time as Principal of the Diepkloof Reformatory, 1953-1948) and as a fierce opponent of apartheid. He was born and educated in Pietermaritzburg, and he retained ties with it throughout his life, calling it “the lovely city” in his autobiography.
Rider Haggard Literary Trail |
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 Henry Rider Haggard was born on 22 June 1856 at Bradenham, Norfolk. His academic career was undistinguished and after failing the Army Entrance examination he was sent to London to study for the Foreign Office examination. There he became unofficially engaged to Mary Elizabeth Jackson, known as Lilly, but the romance was put on hold when in 1875 Haggard’s parents arranged for him to join the staff of Sir Henry Bulwer, Lieutenant-Governor of Natal. |
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Grey Street Literary Trail |
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 Grey Street is tied to the history of the Indian population in South Africa. Indentured Indian labourers were first brought out by the British in the 1860s to work the newly established sugarcane plantations in Natal. Indian traders, mainly from the Gujarat area, migrated to South Africa at the same time. Today, Durban has the largest Asian population in sub-Saharan Africa and trade with India has become a large part of the local economy. Grey Street exists today as the old Indian business and residential area of Durban and the cultural heart of KwaZulu-Natal Indian community.
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