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Breyten Breytenbach

Breyten Breytenbach (Afrikaans pronunciation: [brɛɪtən brɛɪtənbaχ]; 16 September 1939 – 24 November 2024) was a South African writer, poet, and painter. He became internationally well-known as a dissident poet and vocal critic of South Africa under apartheid, and as a political prisoner of the National Party–led South African Government. He is also known as a founding member of the Sestigers, a dissident literary movement, and was one of the most important living poets in Afrikaans literature.

Breyten Breytenbach
Breytenbach in 1995
Breytenbach in 1995
Born(1939-09-16)16 September 1939
Bonnievale, Cape Province, South Africa
Died24 November 2024(2024-11-24) (aged 85)
Paris, France
Occupation
  • Poet
  • painter
  • novelist
  • essayist
LanguageAfrikaans, English
Citizenship
  • South Africa
  • France (since 1982)
Alma materUniversity of Cape Town
Literary movementSestigers
Notable awards
SpouseYolande
RelativesJan Breytenbach (brother)
Cloete Breytenbach (brother)

Early life and education

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Breyten Breytenbach was born on 16 September 1939 in Bonnievale, South Africa.[1]

For secondary education, he attended Hoërskool Hugenote, in Wellington, Western Cape. He later attended the University of Cape Town,[1] studying fine arts at the Michaelis School of Fine Art[2][3] as well as philology.[4]

Activism and imprisonment

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Breytenbach was a political dissenter against the ruling National Party and its white supremacist policy of apartheid in the early 1960s. He was a founding member of the dissident literary movement of Afrikaner writers, the Sestigers[3] in 1961, and participated in protests against the exclusion of black youth from educational pathways.[4]

He left South Africa and lived in Europe and London for some time.[5] In Paris, France, he married a French woman of Vietnamese ancestry, Yolande, as a result of which he was not allowed to return. The then applicable Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 and Immorality Act (1950) made it a criminal offence for a person to have any sexual relations with a person of a different race.[1] However, in 1973, a special visa was granted to the couple to allow them to travel to South Africa for a writers' congress at the University of Cape Town.[6]

Breytenbach was involved in the anti-apartheid movement throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, and joined the international organisation Okhela (meaning "spark"). He spoke out against the policy of apartheid at writers' forums and United Nations conferences.[4]

After travelling to South Africa in 1975 on a false passport with the intention of helping black Africans organise trade unions, and to recruit members of Okhela,[4] he was arrested. At his trial at the Supreme Court in Pretoria after being charged under the Terrorism Act 1967, he pleaded guilty to entering South Africa to start a branch of Okhela, which was intended to be a branch of the African National Congress (ANC) for white people. He was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for high treason,[1] the first two in solitary confinement.[4] According to André Brink, Breytenbach was retried in June 1977 on new and fanciful charges that, among other things, he had planned a submarine attack by the Soviet Navy on the Robben Island prison through the Okhela. In the end, the judge found him guilty only of having smuggled letters and poems out of jail for which he was fined $50.[7] He was not physically assaulted, but the prison officials abused him verbally, and treated him cruelly, including after his mother's death.[8] While in prison, he wrote Mouroir: Mirror Notes of a Novel (published after his release, in 1983)[4]. He revisited his prison experiences in The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist (1984), in which neither the narrator nor his confessor are given stable identities.[9]

He served seven years[10][6] and was released in December 1982 as a result of international protests[1][4] and the intervention of the French president François Mitterrand.[5] Breytenbach returned to Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life, after obtaining French citizenship.[1][4]

In December 1993, he visited to the "new South Africa", and continued to travel there regularly,[11] as well as spending time in the United States and Europe.[1] He continued to be "a critical observer and commentator on South African political and social issues".[4] He became a vocal critic of Nelson Mandela's government, and said that the ANC had turned into a "corrupt organisation".[5]

After free elections toppled the ruling National Party and ended apartheid in 1994, Breytenbach became a visiting professor at the University of Cape Town in the Graduate School of Humanities in January 2000.[12]

He was a founding member and served as executive director of the Gorée Institute in Dakar, Senegal. This arose from an historic meeting in 1987 that became known as the Dakar Conference, between exiled leaders of the ANC and a group of liberal South Africans, mostly Afrikaners, from all walks of life. This gathering, held to define a strategy for effective struggle against the apartheid regime, was one of many that opened the way for a negotiated end to apartheid in South Africa.[13] A good friend of Breytenbach, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, also attended.[10] Breytenbach later taught classes at the institute.[1]

He also campaigned against other injustices in the world. He wrote an open letter in The Guardian to Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, in 2002, saying that Israel was committing crimes against the Palestinians, and "A viable state cannot be built on the expulsion of another people who have as much claim to that territory as you have".[5]

Writing

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Breytenbach has written poetry, novels, plays, and essays, mostly in Afrikaans. Many of his works have been translated into multiple languages.[6]

His first published work was Die Ysterkoei Moet Sweet ("The Iron Cow Must Sweat") in 1964. It was regarded as groundbreaking in Afrikaans poetry, presenting "powerful and startling ideas... without the use of traditional rhythmic metres and attractive images".[1][14]

While in Paris, Breytenbach wrote several works about his experience as an immigrant. His work was at the time controversial in South Africa. His book Skryt. Om 'n sinkende skip blou te verf (Scrit. Painting Blue a Sinking Ship), published in the Netherlands in 1972, was dedicated "to the people of South Africa, denied citizenship in their own country". The book was banned from sale in South Africa.[4]

During his imprisonment, Breytenbach wrote five volumes of poetry and English prose.[1] His prison writings included the poem "Ballade van ontroue bemindes" ("Ballade of Unfaithful Lovers"). Inspired by François Villon's 15th-century "Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis", Breytenbach compared Afrikaner dissidents Peter Blum, Ingrid Jonker, and himself to unfaithful lovers, who had betrayed Afrikaans poetry by taking leave of it.[15]

In 1984, he published The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist.[16]

Art

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Breytenbach with art works, 1995

Breytenbach is also known for his paintings, which have been exhibited internationally in Amsterdam,[9] Paris, New York City, Stockholm, and Hong Kong.[3] The works are often surreal in nature, featuring animal and human figures in captivity.[1] He was inspired by Francisco Goya and Hieronymus Bosch.[4]

In October to November 2018, a solo exhibition of his recent work, along with some older works, entitled The 81 ways of letting go a late self, was held at the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town.[17]

Academia

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In January 2000 Breytenbach started a three-year stint as visiting professor in the departments of English and Drama in the Graduate School of Humanities at the University of Cape Town.[1]

He also taught at the University of Natal, Princeton University, and in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University.[18] He was Global Distinguished Professor at NYU for over ten years.[4]

Other roles

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In 2013 he became the curator of the Poetry Festival in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town.[4]

Personal life, death, and legacy

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Breytenbach in 2009

In 1962, Breytenbach met and married the daughter of the South Vietnamese ambassador to France, Yolande Ngo Thi Hoang Lien.[4] She was born in Vietnam and raised in France,[11] and carried Vietnamese citizenship.[1] They had a daughter, Daphnée, and two grandsons.[2] He also held French citizenship.[5] He practised Zen Buddhism.[4]

In an interview with The New York Times in May 1983, Breytenbach said: "I'd never reject Afrikaans as a language, but I reject it as part of the Afrikaner political identity. I no longer consider myself an Afrikaner".[5][8]

Breytenbach died in Paris, France on 24 November 2024, at the age of 85.[19][20][2] His wife Yolande was by his side.[2]

He was the younger brother of Jan Breytenbach (1932 – 16 June 2024), an SADF commander against whom he held strongly opposing political views, and the late Cloete Breytenbach (1933–2019) a widely published war correspondent.[21][22] Cloete was notably one of the few people given permission by South African Prime Minister John Vorster to take photographs of Nelson Mandela at Robben Island following his imprisonment there in July 1964.[23][24][25]

Breytenbach is now informally considered by Afrikaans-speakers as their poet laureate and was one of the most important living poets in Afrikaans literature.[26][10] One of the jurors for the 2017 Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, German writer, publisher, and translator Michael Krüger, wrote: "Breytenbach is without question the most gifted and most productive poet of White-Africa's literature... His works as a poet and as a painter are now acknowledged as outstanding in understanding our modern world".[4]

Honours and awards

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French honours

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Literary awards

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Breytenbach is mentioned by name as the only exception in the satirical Apartheid-era Spitting Image song "I've Never Met a Nice South African".[36]

The Basque rock band Berri Txarrak dedicated the song "Breyten" to him on their 2005 album Jaio.Musika.Hil.[37]

Works

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Breytenbach's work includes numerous volumes of novels, poetry and essays, many of which are in Afrikaans. Many have been translated from Afrikaans to English, and many were originally published in English. Exhibitions of his paintings and prints have been shown in cities around the world.[38]

His works have been translated into many languages, including English, Dutch, German, French, Arabic, Polish, Danish, Basque, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian.[6]

Poetry in Afrikaans

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  • Die ysterkoei moet sweet (The Iron Cow Must Sweat), Johannesburg, 1964
  • Die huis van die dowe (The House of the Deaf), Cape Town, 1967
  • Kouevuur (Gangrene), Cape Town, 1969
  • Lotus, Cape Town, 1970
  • The Remains (Oorblyfsels), Cape Town, 1970
  • Skryt. Om 'n sinkende skip blou te verf (Scrit. Painting Blue a sinking Ship), Amsterdam, 1972
  • Met ander woorde (In Other Words), Cape Town, 1973
  • Voetskrif (Footnote), Johannesburg, 1976
  • Sinking Ship Blues, Oasis Editions, Toronto 1977
  • And Death White as Words. An Anthology, London, 1978
  • In Africa even the flies are happy, London, 1978
  • Flower Writing (Blomskryf), Emmarentia, 1979 (Selected poems)
  • Eclipse (Eklips), Emmarentia, 1983
  • YK, Emmarentia, 1983
  • Buffalo Bill, Emmarentia, 1984
  • Living Death (Lewendood), Emmarentia, 1985
  • Judas Eye, London – New York, 1988
  • As Like (Soos die so), Emmarentia, 1990
  • Nine Landscapes of our Times Bequeathed to a Beloved (Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan 'n beminde), Groenkloof, 1993
  • The Handful of Feathers (Die hand vol vere), Cape Town, 1995 (Selected poems)
  • The Remains. An Elegy (Oorblyfsels. 'n Roudig), Cape Town, 1997
  • Paper Flower (Papierblom), Cape Town, 1998
  • Lady One, Cape Town, 2000 (Selected love poems)
  • Iron Cow Blues (Ysterkoei-blues), Cape Town, 2001 (Collected poems 1964–1975)
  • Lady One: Of Love and other Poems, New York, 2002
  • The undanced dance. Prison poetry 1975 – 1983 (Die ongedanste dans. Gevangenisgedigte 1975 – 1983), Cape Town, 2005
  • Die windvanger (The windcatcher), Cape Town, 2007
  • Voice Over: A Nomadic Conversation with Mahmoud Darwish, Archipelago Books, 2009
  • Catalects (Artefacts for the slow uses of dying) (Katalekte (artefakte vir die stadige gebruike van doodgaan)), Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 2012

Prose in English

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  • Catastrophes (Katastrofes), Johannesburg, 1964 (stories)
  • To Fly (Om te vlieg), Cape Town, 1971 (novel)
  • The Tree Behind the Moon (De boom achter de maan), Amsterdam, 1974 (stories)
  • The Anthill Bloats … (Die miernes swell op ...), Emmarentia, 1980 (stories)
  • A Season in Paradise (Een seizoen in het paradijs), Amsterdam – New York – London, 1980 (novel, uncensored edition)
  • Mouroir: Mirror Notes of a Novel, London – New York, 1983
  • Mirror Death (Spiegeldood), Amsterdam, 1984 (stories)
  • End Papers, London, 1985 (essays)
  • The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, London – New York, 1985[16][9]
  • Memory of Snow and of Dust, London – New York, 1987 (novel)
  • Book. Part One (Boek. Deel een), Emmarentia, 1987 (essays)
  • All One Horse. Fiction and Images, London, 1989
  • Sweet Heart (Hart-Lam), Emmarentia, 1991 (essays)
  • Return to Paradise. An African journal, London – New York, 1992 (which won the Alan Paton Award)
  • The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution, London – New York, 1996 (essays)
  • Dog Heart. A travel memoir, Cape Town, 1998
  • Word Work (Woordwerk), Cape Town, 1999
  • A Veil of Footsteps, Cape Town, 2008
  • Intimate Stranger, Archipelago Books, 2009
  • Notes From The Middle World: Essays, Haymarket Books, 2009

CDs

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  • Mondmusiek (2001)[6]
  • Lady One (2002)[6]

Articles

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  • "Mandela's Smile: Notes on South Africa's Failed Revolution". Harper's Magazine. Vol. 317, no. 1903. December 2008. pp. 39–48.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Breyten Breytenbach". South African History Online. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d Ontong, Joel (24 November 2024). "Writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach, 85, has died". News24. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  3. ^ a b c "Bio & Auction Results". Strauss & Co. 9 October 2024. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t "Laureate of the Zbigniew Herbert Literary Award 2017". Fundacja Herberta. 16 September 1939. Archived from the original on 22 June 2024. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Kupemba, Danai Nesta (24 November 2024). "South African writer and anti-apartheid activist Breyten Breytenbach dies aged 85". BBC News. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q "Breyten Breytenbach". Helgaard Steyn-Pryse. 18 October 2020. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  7. ^ André Brink (1985). "Introduction". A Season in Paradise. London: Faber and Faber. p. 11. ISBN 0-571-13491-2.
  8. ^ a b "A South African poet on his imprisonment". The New York Times. 1 May 1983. Retrieved 26 November 2024.
  9. ^ a b c Saayman, Sandra (2011). "Dépersonnalisation et dédoublement du protagoniste de The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist de Breyten Breytenbach". Travaux et documents (in French). 40 (Langages, écritures et frontières du corps): 97–107. ISSN 1247-1194.
  10. ^ a b c Breytenbach, Glynnis (24 November 2024). "DA mourns the passing of Breyten Breytenbach". Democratic Alliance. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  11. ^ a b c d e AFP (24 November 2024). "S.Africa's Breyten Breytenbach, writer and anti-apartheid activist". Yahoo News. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Breuer, Rosemarie (2014). "Breyten Breytenbach". Stellenbosch Writers. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  13. ^ "Hommage à Breyten Breytenbach, 80 ans : une vie dédiée à la lutte contre l'apartheid" (in French). 16 September 2019.
  14. ^ Joyce, P. (1989). The South African Family Encyclopaedia, Cape Town: Struik, p.58.
  15. ^ Louise Viljoen (2012), Ingrid Jonker: Poet under Apartheid, page 136.
  16. ^ a b Schalkwyk, David (1994). "Confession and Solidarity in the Prison Writing of Breyten Breytenbach and Jeremy Cronin". Research in African Literatures. 25 (1). Indiana University Press: 23–45. JSTOR 3820035.
  17. ^ "The 81 ways of letting go a late self". STEVENSON. 16 September 1939. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Breyten Breytenbach". NYU: Arts & Science. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  19. ^ "Le peintre et poète sud-africain Breyten Breytenbach est mort". Franceinfo (in French). 24 November 2024. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  20. ^ "Murmures | Africultures : Le décès du peintre et poète sud-africain Breyten Breytenbach". Africultures (in French). Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  21. ^ Du Preez, Max (21 June 2024). "Gifted band of Breytenbach brothers". Vrye Weekblad (in Afrikaans). Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  22. ^ Dougan, Leila (30 September 2018). "Cloete Breytenbach, documenter of soldiers at war". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  23. ^ "Cloete Breytenbach". South Africa History Online. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  24. ^ "Passing of South African photographer Cloete Breytenbach". Nelson Mandela Foundation. 13 July 2019. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  25. ^ "World-renowned photographer Breytenbach dies". SABC. 1 June 2019. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  26. ^ De Waal, Shaun (25 November 2024). "OBITUARY | Breyten Breytenbach: The rebel poet who redefined the Afrikaans literary landscape". News24. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  27. ^ a b "Breyten Breytenbach, writer who challenged apartheid, dies at 85". France 24. 24 November 2024. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  28. ^ a b "Breyten Breytenbach, a writer who challenged apartheid, dies at the age of 85". Agathequelquejay. 25 November 2024. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  29. ^ a b "Le peintre et poète sud-africain Breyten Breytenbach est mort". RFI (in French). 24 November 2024. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  30. ^ "S.Africa's Breyten Breytenbach, writer and anti-apartheid activist". France 24. 24 November 2024. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  31. ^ "1985: Fiction: Mouroir". 1985.
  32. ^ Winners
  33. ^ Breytenbach, B. (2015). Parole. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1-77022-917-4. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  34. ^ "Previous winners of the Alan Paton Award and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize". The Times. 4 June 2007. Archived from the original on 26 February 2009.
  35. ^ "Laureate of the Zbigniew Herbert Literary Award 2017". Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
  36. ^ "(I've Never Met) A Nice South African − a Song by Spitting Image", h2g2, 29 March 2005. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
  37. ^ "Breyten". Berri Txarrak. 23 March 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  38. ^ "Author Focus". Human & Rousseau. Archived from the original on 7 July 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
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