LONDON (CNN) - The widow of one of Africa's most celebrated novelists says she is fleeing South Africa because of rampant crime.

"I love this country with a passion but I cannot live here any more," said Anne Paton, whose husband, Alan Paton, wrote "Cry The Beloved Country" half-a-century ago.

"Crime is rampaging through the land," she said in an article in the London Sunday Times. She said her car has been hijacked by gunmen and she was attacked at knifepoint in her home.

"There is now more racial tension in this country than I have ever known," she said.

Paton plans to return to England, where she was born 71 years ago. Her husband "worked all his life for black majority rule. I am glad he is not alive now," she said. "He would have been so distressed to see what has happened to his beloved country," she told the newspaper.

"The black people are suffering more than the whites. The majority of hijackings, rapes and murders are perpetrated on them. They cannot run away like the whites who are streaming away in their thousands," she said.

"President Mandela has referred to us who leave as cowards and says the country can do without us," she said.

The problem is lawlessness, she said. Nine acquaintances were murdered, and she has had enough.

Reuters contributed to this report.