In early 1960s South Africa, Breytenbach emerged as the leader of the Sestiger movement of young white dissidents that sought to explore the literary potential of Afrikaans while rejecting its colonial associations. As he explained to The New York Times in 1986, "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." Breytenbach would eventually settle in France, but during a 1975 trip home to provide support to the outlaw African National Congress, he was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison, requiring the intervention of President François Mitterrand to negotiate his release.
We were lucky to play host to Breytenbach in December 2008, when he read at the Writers House as part of the Writers Without Borders series. His seventy-five minute reading includes the titles "A Black City," "Letter to a Butcher from Abroad," "In a Burning Sea," "Goya," and "The Way Back," among others, ending with a long Q&A session. You'll find a segmented recording of that event on PennSound's Breyten Breytenbach author page, along with his 2005 appearance on Leonard Schwartz's program Cross-Cultural Poetics, during which he discussed his essay "The Middle World" and his then latest collection, Lady One: Of Love And Other Poems. Click here to start listening.
We send our deepest sympathies to Breytenbach's family and his fans worldwide.
