Debbie Go Home is the title of a few works based on a short story by Alan Paton.

Debbie Go Home the original story by Alan Paton

A short story, set in South Africa, it was published in the collection Debbie Go Home in 1961. The volume also including Ha'penny; The Divided House; Life for a Life; Death of a Tsotsi; The Worst Thing of his Life; The Waste Land; A Drink in the Passage; Sponono and The Elephant-Shooter.

M. Malaba (2015) says that Paton's collection "foregrounds the plight of the coloured community in the wake of the so-called Industrial Conciliation Act and the systematic tightening of segregationist policies as the National Party government consolidated its grip on power. Five of the ten stories in the anthology are drawn from Paton’s experience at Diepkloof Reformatory."

Dramatised versions of the story

Debbie Go Home by Michael Picardie

A TV play adapted from Alan Paton's short story by the same name, it was produced for the BBC by James MacTaggart, with music by The Happy Wanderers and design by Richard Wilmot.

Broadcast on BBC Television, 7 November 1962. The script is unpublished.

Debbie Go Home by James Winkler

Some sources site this as an original work, but it is most likely a stage version by Winkler, based on the short story. The play was apparently performed some time in the 1980s?

Sources

Malaba, M. 2015. "Could You Not Write Otherwise?”. The Political Dimension of Alan Paton’s Poetry. In: KOERS — Bulletin for Christian Scholarship,80(2) Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.19108/koers.80.2.2229.

https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files2/asapr59.22.pdf

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/1f3f56f1398748dbbaf26fae13276e2d

E-mail from Michael Picardie to Temple Hauptfleisch, Monday 2015/07/06 10:46 PM.

The Michael Picardie website at http://michaelpicardie.co.uk/main.php.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2705154-debbie-go-home

Faan se Stasie theatre programme, 1985.

Various articles in The Rand Daily Mail.

Go to the ESAT Bibliography