Dennis Brutus

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Dennis Brutus (1967)

Dennis Vincent Brutus (born November 28, 1924 in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare , Zimbabwe ), † December 26, 2009 in Cape Town ) was a South African poet and former resistance fighter against apartheid . He also used the pseudonym John Bruin .

Life

Dennis Brutus was born to South African parents in Southern Rhodesia . He attended college at Fort Hare and studied English and Education at the University of the Witwatersrand . From 1947 to 1961 he taught English and Afrikaans in Port Elizabeth , later teaching at his old school. In 1950 he married May Jaggers, with whom he had eight children. Because he was involved in the resistance against apartheid and was president of an organization that campaigned for mixed Olympic teams, he was banned from teaching and publishing books. In 1963 he had to flee from the government. He was arrested in Mozambique , extradited to South Africa and sentenced to 18 months of forced labor on Robben Island . In 1966 he was able to emigrate to Great Britain and in 1971 to the USA , where he taught English literature and African studies at several universities. In 1990 he visited South Africa for the first time. Most recently, he was Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh . He died on December 26, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Works

  • Sirens Knuckles and Boots (1963)
  • Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (1968)
  • Poems from Algiers (1970)
  • A Simple Lust (1973)
  • China Poems (1975)
  • Stubborn Hope (1978)
  • Salutes and Censures (1982)
  • Airs & Tributes (1989)
  • Still the Sirens (1993)
  • Remembering Soweto (2004)
  • Leafdrift (2005)
  • Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (2006)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary in the New York Times , accessed January 6, 2010
  2. ^ Obituary in the Monthly Review , accessed December 26, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Brutus, Dennis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brutus, Dennis Vincent; Bruin, John (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Harare , Zimbabwe
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 2009
Place of death Cape Town , South Africa