A Passage to India vs Cry, The Beloved Country: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Race Relations, Open_syllabus_project, Classics, History, Fiction
A Passage to India
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When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced 'Anglo-Indian' community. Determined to escape the parochial…
Cry, The Beloved Country
“IT IS SOME eleven years since the first Author's Note was written.”
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This book is the most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, and an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948. Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white…
Side by side
The verdict
- Readers rate Cry, The Beloved Country highest: Cry, The Beloved Country 3.9 · A Passage to India 3.7.
- A Passage to India has the widest readership — 87602 ratings behind its score.
- Cry, The Beloved Country runs the darker storyline; A Passage to India stays the lighter read.
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How to choose
Scores by source
| A Passage to India | Cry, The Beloved Country | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 3.7 (87602) | 3.9 (81000) |
| Hardcover | 3.6 (108) | 2.5 (2) |
| Google Books | — | 2.0 (1) |
| Apple Books | 4.0 (22) | 4.0 (171) |
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Reception
| A Passage to India | Cry, The Beloved Country | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 87602 | 81000 |
| Editions | 220 | 59 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 102235 | 54502 |
| Reading it now | 5510 | 1871 |
| Written reviews | 5083 | 5566 |
| Wikipedia attention | 11151 | 4147 |
| Pages | 325 | 258 |
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Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: A Passage to India or Cry, The Beloved Country?
Cry, The Beloved Country has the higher combined reader rating across sources (Cry, The Beloved Country 3.9/5, A Passage to India 3.7/5).
Which is shorter to read: A Passage to India or Cry, The Beloved Country?
Cry, The Beloved Country is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: Cry, The Beloved Country (258 pages, ≈ 4 h 47 m); A Passage to India (325 pages, ≈ 6 h 01 m).
Which is harder to read: A Passage to India or Cry, The Beloved Country?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — A Passage to India: Challenging; Cry, The Beloved Country: Demanding.
Have both books been made into films?
A Passage to India: 2 film adaptations; Cry, The Beloved Country: no film adaptation on record.