Breyten Breytenbach

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Breytenbach at the Brooklyn Book Festival , 2009

Breyten Breytenbach (born September 16, 1939 in Bonnievale , South Africa ) is a writer , painter and anti-apartheid activist .

Life

Wall painting in the Gaffelstraat in Rotterdam , commemorating writers who were imprisoned for their work

Breyten Breytenbach grew up in a well-off Boer family in Bonnievale. His older brother Jan Breytenbach embarked on an officer career and is considered the founder of the special forces of the South African Defense Force . Breyten Breytenbach began studying art and literature at the University of Cape Town in 1958 . In 1959 he left South Africa for a long trip to Europe, continued his studies in Paris in 1960 and became a committed opponent of apartheid policy. After marrying a French woman of Vietnamese descent, he was forbidden to return freely to his homeland. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act there criminalized sexual relations between whites and members of other races and did not allow such marriage. In 1962 he was one of the founders of the South African literary movement Sestigers .

In France he was a founding member of the Okhela resistance group in exile , which fought against the Boer government's apartheid policy. In 1975 he visited South Africa with a forged passport, was betrayed and arrested at the airport on departure. Because of his active role in the anti-apartheid movement and alleged links to the African National Congress (ANC), he was sentenced to nine years in prison for high treason . Due to ongoing international protests and following interventions by the French government at the highest political level, he was released from prison in France after seven years. He returned to Paris in 1982 and took French citizenship . In 1983 and 1984 he refused to accept two literary prizes in his home country, which he was to receive for the poems he wrote during his imprisonment.

As a French citizen, he now spends his time in Europe, Africa and the USA. From 1992 onwards, as Executive Director, he was responsible for setting up and developing the Gorée Institute cultural center on the former slave island of Gorée off Senegal's capital Dakar . He also works as a visiting professor at various universities, for example in Cape Town and New York.

In his literary works, which are available in translations worldwide, he campaigns against racism and for the social integration and understanding of people. He originally wrote most of his poems, novels and essays in Afrikaans , and many of his publications were originally published in English . Since 1989 essays, reports and poems by him have been published in German in the cultural magazine Lettre International , whose issue No. 69 he also designed artistically. His novels contain surrealist metaphors, poems, dialogues, myths and dreams; they reflect the African discourses of the time.

After 2000 four albums appeared on which Breytenbach speaks his own poems with music.

reception

Breyten Breytenbach has been one of the most important poets in South Africa since the 1960s. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honor and has received the most important literary prizes in his South African homeland several times, including the CNA Literary Award five times . Breytenbach is also internationally recognized as a painter. His associative-surreal pictures and prints have been shown in exhibitions in Johannesburg , Cape Town , Hong Kong , Amsterdam , Stockholm , Paris , Brussels , Edinburgh and New York .

Awards

  • 1967: CNA Literary Award for Die huis van die dowe
  • 1969: CNA Literary Award for Kouevuur
  • 1970: CNA Literary Award for Lotus
  • 1983: CNA Literary Award for ('Yk') (award declined)
  • 1984: Hertzogprys for ('Yk') (award declined)
  • 1989: CNA Literary Award for Memory of Snow and Dust
  • 1999: Hertzog Prize for Oorblyfsels: 'n roudig and Papierblom
  • 2008: Hertzogprys for Die Windvanger
  • 2010: Mahmoud Darwish Award for Creativity for Oorblyfsel / Voice Over: A Nomadic Conversation with Mahmoud Darwish
  • 2014: Honorary doctorate from Ghent University

Works

Original editions

Volumes of poetry

  • The ysterkoei moet sweet. Johannesburg 1964
  • The huis van die dowe. Cape Town 1967
  • Kouevuur. Cape Town 1969
  • Lotus. Cape Town 1970
  • Skryt. Om 'n sinking skip blou te av. Amsterdam 1972
  • Met other woorde. Cape Town 1973
  • Voetskrif. Johannesburg 1976
  • Sinking Ship Blues. Toronto 1977
  • And Death White as Words. An Anthology. London 1978
  • In Africa even the flies are happy. London 1978
  • Blomskryf. Emmarentia 1979
  • Eclipses. Emmarentia 1983
  • ('Yk'). Taurus 1983
  • Buffalo Bill. Emmarentia 1984
  • Lewendoon. Emmarentia 1985
  • Judas Eye. London / New York 1989
  • Soos the so. Emmarentia 1990
  • Nege cape van ons tye bemaak aan 'n beminde. Groenkloof 1993
  • The hand vol vere. Cape Town 1995
  • Oorblyfsels, 'n Roudig. Cape Town 1997
  • Paper bloom. Cape Town 1998
  • Lady One. Cape Town 2000
  • Ysterkoei-blues. Kaapstad 2001 (Collected Poems 1964–1975)
  • Lady One: Of Love and other Poems. New York 2002
  • The ongedanste dans. Kaapstad, 2005 (prison poems 1976–1983)
  • Windvanger. Cape Town 2007
  • Oorblyfsel / Voice over. Kaapstad / Cape Town 2009
  • the beginsel van stof. Cape Town 2011
  • catalogs - artifacts of the stadige gebruike van doodgaan. Cape Town 2012
  • vyf-en-veertig skemeraandsange. Cape Town 2014
  • the na-dood. Cape Town 2016
  • The singing hand: Versamelde honored 1984–2014. Cape Town 2016
  • Op away na Kû. Cape Town 2019

prose

  • Disaster. 1964 (short stories)
  • Om te vlieg. Kaapstad 1971 (novel)
  • De boom eighth de maan. Amsterdam 1974
  • The miernes swell op…. Emmarentia 1980 (short stories)
  • A season in paradise. Amsterdam / New York / London 1980 (novel)
  • Mouroir: Mirror Notes of a Novel. London / New York 1983
  • The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist. London / New York 1983
  • Spiegeldood. Amsterdam 1984
  • End papers. London 1985 (essays)
  • Memory of Snow and Dust. London / New York 1987 (novel)
  • Boek. Deel een. Emmarentia 1987 (essays)
  • All one horse. Fiction and Images. London 1989
  • Hart-Lam. Emmarentia 1991 (essays)
  • Return to Paradise. An African Journal. London / New York 1992
  • Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution. London / New York 1996 (essays)
  • Dog Heart. A travel memoir. Cape Town 1998
  • Woordwerk. Cape Town 1999
  • A veil of footsteps. Memoir of a Nomadic Fictional Character. Cape Town 2007
  • Voice Over: A Nomadic Conversation with Mahmoud Darwish. Cape Town 2009

Books in German

  • Southern Cross, black fire. Berlin 1984 (poems and prose)
  • True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist. 1984 (novel)
  • Poetry album. Berlin 1985
  • Final Act South Africa. Cologne 1986 (essays and speeches)
  • Moments in paradise. Düsseldorf 1987 (autobiography)
  • All a horse. Cologne 1989 (texts and images)
  • Memory of snow and dust. Cologne 1992 (novel)
  • Mouroir: mirroring a novel. Frankfurt a. M. 1993
  • Mirror on fire: what can we offer the future? Hamburg 1995 (essay)
  • Return to paradise. An African journal. Frankfurt a. M. 1995 (novel)
  • The memory of birds in times of revolution. Frankfurt a. M. 1997 (novel)
  • Mixed Breed Heart: A Return to Africa. Munich 1999

Further publications in German

  • African visions. Hoarse incantations to reinvent a continent. In: Lettre International 29, Summer 1995, pp. 72-78.
  • Notes from the Middle World. In: Lettre International 34, Autumn 1996, pp. 6-11.
  • Dream about the colorful bird. Report on the reinvention of the African continent. In: Lettre International 56, Spring 2002, pp. 4-7.
  • The hand that sings In: Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs, Writing is the better life. Conversations with authors , Kunstmann, Munich 2006. ISBN 978-3888974380

CDs

  • 2002; Lady One (Rhythm Records)
  • 2008: Mondmusiek (Rhythm Records)
  • 2010: Best Breyten (Rhythm Records)
  • 2014: Catalects (Rhythm Records)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Breytenbach's biography at africultures.com (English), accessed on February 15, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Breytenbach, Breyten
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer, anti-apartheid activist and painter
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonnievale , South Africa