Photo: Naomi Bruwer
On Sunday, 23 February 2025, the life and work of Breyten Breytenbach – who passed away on 24 November 2024 – was celebrated at the Breytenbach Sentrum in Wellington. Herewith the text version of Francis Galloway’s talk as part of the event.
Dear Yolande, Daphnée and family
It is an honour for me to address you on this occasion and to provide a brief overview of Breyten’s career as writer and public figure in South Africa.
Introduction
In Dog heart, Breyten charts his “heartland” as including towns such as Montagu, Bonnievale, Swellendam; areas known as the Overberg, the Rûens and Kannaland; places beyond the inner circle – Riversdal, Waenhuiskrans, Agulhas; and the more classical Boland of Wellington and Paarl.
And here we are in Wellington, at the house of Breyten’s parents. He has indeed “arrived home”: “I will die and go to my father … come with me/ to Wellington/ … let’s die and perish and be merry:/ my father has a big boarding house.”
From this heartland, Breyten’s footprints stretched far and wide over continents, and he resided in many abodes, including a cell (in solitary confinement) in Pretoria Central Prison. Tonight, we cannot trace all these footprints, specifically his career as artist and international cultural figure. But we can visit a few local signposts of his career as an Afrikaans writer and public figure and intellectual spanning 60 years. Allow me to do it. For Breyten.
Breyten was a thorn in the flesh of the local political and art establishments, a “stout seun” who used profane words in his mould-shattering poems and prose and who refused to be fenced in, a Zen Buddhist who strung strands of word psalms, a terrorist/freedom fighter, a literary innovator and influential Afrikaans poet, a surrealist painter and a political figure. He was also an explorer of concepts such as identity, diversity, memory, moral imagination, the middle world and saam-mekaar-andersmaak (literally, making one another different together). He was a charismatic, complex and controversial but consistent progressive public figure – and a brilliant, brave and brazen wordsmith.
Breyten was born on 16 September 1939 in Bonnievale in the heart of an Afrikaner family of five children; grew up in the Boland; studied briefly at the Michaelis School of Art in Cape Town; and had a nomadic “gap year” or two, before marrying Yolande and settling in Paris in 1962, where he created his early paintings in a tiny flat on the Left Bank. Here, his handwritten Afrikaans poems and short texts were discovered by the author Chris Barnard, who convinced him to submit manuscripts to Bartho Smit of the mainstream publishing house Afrikaanse Pers-Boekhandel (APB).
In what follows, I provide an overview of his literary and public career according to the five phases in his local publishing history.
Phase 1: 1964 to 1973
Publishing history
In 1964, at the age of 25, he made his literary debut at APB with a volume of poetry (Die ysterkoei moet sweet) and a collection of surrealist short texts (Katastrofes), which immediately forced him into the limelight. Critics hailed the revolutionary literary renewal, and he was awarded the APB Prize. This generous monetary award would have allowed him to visit the country of his birth with Yolande and to introduce her to his parents. The subsequent apartheid-based refusal of a visa to her was a rude awakening for Breyten. It drove him into self-exile and radicalised his political thinking. The boundaries between the experience of self and the creation of poetry, between private and public, became blurred. His personal history intertwined with the political history of South Africa.
Between 1964 and 1973, Breyten published 10 titles – at three different local publishing houses. After a breach of confidence following his debut at APB, there was a short-lived association with Human & Rousseau (H&R) (with one title, Die huis van die dowe, which was controversially awarded the CNA Prize).
Breyten then found a publishing “home” in Buren, the small independent publishing house of Daantjie Saayman. Five titles were added to his developing body of work: the poetry volumes Kouevuur and Lotus (both awarded the CNA Prize); a collection of topical poems published “underground” (Oorblyfsels uit die pelgrim se reis); the prose text Om te vlieg; and the small volume of poetry Met ander woorde, reflecting Breyten’s experience of zazen. This last title was published in 1973, the year in which Breyten and Yolande were finally allowed to travel to South Africa.
Buren, however, had to close in 1974 for financial reasons, after losing a court battle against the banning of André P Brink’s Kennis van die aand. By 1975, Breyten was without a publisher and publishing house.
Resistance
During the 10 years that followed the visa debacle in 1965, Breyten emerged as an eloquent challenger of the apartheid state. His first local public appearance was in 1973 at the University of Cape Town (UCT) summer school, dedicated to the writers of the sixties. He distanced himself from the political connotations that tainted the concept “Afrikaner” and celebrated Afrikaans as a creole language. Internationally, he made anti-apartheid statements, for example in the Dutch press, which were highlighted in local newspapers. His public pronouncements provoked the wrath of the Afrikaans media, the public, his publishers and even fellow writers. He was also a pioneer of an alternative view on the function of art and the role of the writer. His volume of protest poetry, Skryt, which was published in 1972 in the Netherlands, fell victim to the South African censorship dispensation of 1974.
Already by the late 1960s, Breyten felt that resistance to apartheid in the form of protest poetry was an “obscene intellectual challenge” and that one had to become actively involved. He, therefore, joined the underground anti-apartheid organisations Atlas and Okhela. In July 1975, he entered the country clandestinely and was arrested shortly afterwards. He was tried under the Suppression of Terrorism Act and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. He spent the first two years in solitary confinement in Pretoria Central Prison. After a second trial in 1977, he was moved to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town.
The trials took place in an atmosphere of, on the one hand, mounting black resistance to the state and the aggressive suppression of dissidence, and, on the other hand, increasing introspection on the part of Afrikaner intellectuals and writers. The political and literary scene would look different by the time Breyten was released from prison.
Phase 2: 1976 to 1982
Publishing history
Breyten’s existing titles were not banned with his imprisonment. And during the time of his incarceration, he was granted permission to write (but not to paint). His writings were “taken into safekeeping” daily by the prison authorities, and he was not allowed to publish this work. It was an ironic twist of affairs that Perskor, the reconfigured version of the former publishing house APB, published two titles in 1976. The first was a volume of poetry written during the time of Breyten’s detention before sentencing (Voetskrif, awarded the Perskor Prize). The second was the travelogue written during the three-month visit of Breyten and Yolande to South Africa in 1972 (’n Seisoen in die paradys).
During the years 1977 to 1982, Breyten’s literary stature was maintained by a small independent and anti-establishment publishing house, Taurus. It was launched in 1975 in reaction to the expanding threat of formal censorship, and it operated “underground”. The “three musketeers” – Ampie Coetzee, John Miles and Ernst Lindenberg – reached out to Breyten in prison via his brother Cloete and Yolande, who acted as his agent. They compiled two anthologies of his existing work. The publication of a few (selected and translated) titles during this time in the Netherlands, the UK and elsewhere extended Breyten’s reputation beyond the Afrikaans literary field.
Phase 3: 1983 to 1994
On the eve of the so-called new (political) dispensation, Breyten’s sentence was suspended after seven years. Early in December 1982, he was released, and he returned to Paris. He obtained French citizenship, which allowed him to travel internationally and to position himself on the world stage. In the era after his release, his international stature as an author and cultural figure (not foremost as a freedom fighter or political prisoner) grew rapidly.
Publishing history
Locally, his literary publications became the backbone of the publishing list of Taurus. Ten titles were published between 1983 and 1991. These included four volumes of poetry (Eklips, (‘YK’), Buffalo Bill and Lewendood) and two prose works (Mouroir and Boek) that had been created during his imprisonment. The prison memoir The true confessions of an albino terrorist was published in 1984. Soos die so had two sections of poetry – the first created in 1974 and the second in 1988. The list also included two coproductions with international publishing houses: Memory of snow and of dust (awarded the CNA Prize) and All one horse. The small booklet Hart-lam was the last title on the list.
This period of Breyten’s publishing history (outside mainstream channels) concluded with three titles produced by other independent imprints: Return to paradise (David Philip, awarded the Alan Paton Prize), Plakboek (Hond) and Nege landskappe (Hond/Intaka). The last of these was the first volume of new poetry created after his release from prison and was awarded the Helgaard Steyn Prize.
Political activities
If his early release was meant to bribe and curb Breyten into forgoing his political “extremism” and focusing on serving the cause of the Afrikaans language and literature, it failed. He did not recoil from criticising the political era of PW Botha and the Tricameral Parliament. One such occasion was his controversial reception speech when the Rapport Prize was presented to him for (“YK”) in 1986 in the State Theatre in Pretoria. However, he did not involve himself in underground political activities anymore, but in alternative kinds of actions to bring about freedom and change. He became one of the initiators with Frederik van Zyl Slabbert of talks and outreach initiatives between ANC leaders in exile and Afrikaner intellectuals and artists in Dakar (1987) and Victoria Falls (1989). During the 1990s, official dialogue brought about fundamental constitutional change. It culminated in the country’s first free general elections and the inauguration of President Mandela in May 1994.
The political transformation impacted on the functioning of the broader South African society and the character of organisations and cultural industries, including the reconstruction of the publishing industry. By 1992, Taurus lost its reason to exist, and a selection of its publishing list was acquired by the mainstream firm H&R.
Phase 4: 1995 to 2001
Publishing history
H&R then became Breyten’s new publishing home for the mature and late phases of his publishing career – with Kerneels Breytenbach at the helm and Alida Potgieter and later Nèlleke de Jager as his editors. First on the list in 1995 was Die hand vol vere, an anthology of poetry compiled by Ampie Coetzee. Until 2001, nine more titles were added. The first two were an essay collection, The memory of birds, and Oorblyfsels: ’n Roudig, a collection of poems commemorating the death of his publisher friend Daantjie Saayman. In 1998, the long-awaited, fully-fledged new poetry collection Papierblom, as well as the play Boklied and the “travel memoir” Dog heart, were published. These were followed by Woordwerk and Lady one, an anthology of love poetry. In 2001, the play Die toneelstuk, as well as the first volume of his collected poetry, Ysterkoei blues (poems from 1964 to 1975), were published. His local publishing history then only resumed in 2005.
Platforms, possibilities and acknowledgement
In the initial stage of the post-apartheid era, new platforms, possibilities and acknowledgement became available to Breyten. I will highlight only some of these below.
From 1995 to 1998, he was appointed as visiting professor at the University of Natal’s Durban campus, where he was the cofounder of the Centre for Creative Arts. From this platform, he presented his twofold Fernando Pessoa public lectures, in which he tabled his concept of “the middle world” (which he would later embroider). He also colaunched the international Poetry Africa festival (which morphed into the Time of the Writer festival). This arrangement allowed him and Yolande to be in the country for longer periods, and they even acquired a house in the Boland town of Montagu for a few years (which they eventually gave up in 2008).
When the Dutch academic and cultural boycott against the country was lifted, Breyten played a leading role in co-organising a pioneering authors event, backed by the Nederlandse Taalunie and the Stichting Poetry International in Rotterdam. In 1996, the first official group visit by Dutch and Flemish authors took place, and they toured various venues in the country.
In 1997, the documentary film A season in paradise, by the Swiss filmmaker Richard Dindo, enjoyed various screenings at local cultural events. In the same year, an hour-long documentary, Breyten Breytenbach, the artist by investigative journalist Hennie Serfontein, was broadcast on a local English TV channel.
When the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (Akademie) decided to award the 1999 Hertzog Prize to him for Oorblyfsels: ’n Roudig and Papierblom, Breyten accepted it. During the 1960s and 1970s, this prize had been withheld from him for ideological reasons, and in 1984 he had declined it. On 17 September, the ceremony took place in the packed Aula theatre of the University of Pretoria (UP). Breyten arrived from New York for the occasion. His acceptance speech contained signs of a new disillusionment: “Perhaps more potent hegemonies (than the Afrikaner establishment) have appeared on the national scene.”
In this era, he expanded his creative repertoire as a playwright, and three plays were produced at national arts festivals: Boklied (1998, Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK)), The life and times of Johnny Cockroach (1999, Grahamstown National Arts Festival) and Die toneelstuk (2001, KKNK).
He also participated in interest groups and initiatives centred around minority rights and language issues, for example, the short-lived Oorlegplatform vir Afrikaans and Group 64. He initiated talks about a “free” Afrikaans university. In 1999, he was a signatory to an open letter to President Mbeki, suggesting a charter for minority rights.
At the dawn of the new millennium, Breyten was at his height of local and international participation and appreciation. UCT appointed him as visiting professor (2000 to 2002), CD compilations of his poetry set to music were launched, and he made his debut as a voice artist. He copresented a programme on poets and poetry with Ampie Coetzee on the Afrikaans TV channel kykNET. And two important art exhibitions took place: Lappesait and Dancing the dog. During this time, he was also appointed in the postgraduate programme for creative writing at New York University (until 2011).
Turbulence and withdrawal
The first three years of the 2000s, however, also brought about public turbulence in Breyten’s career. His critical observations of the unfolding “new” South Africa, and his participation on platforms agitating for the Afrikaans language and culture, led to new labels being assigned to him. He was portrayed as either a progressive activist for minority rights or a “new right-wing” conservative who resisted nation building and affirmative action. His proximity to the post-apartheid Afrikaner inner circle started to choke him, and he rejected the new construct into which the public and media tried to mould him.
He did, however, accept the invitation to deliver the opening address for the first online writers’ conference in 2000 presented by LitNet, the new independent Afrikaans online journal. His provocative contribution drew wide reaction, including an open letter in which he was accused of participating in the “public wailing around the demise of the Afrikaans language” and being “a freelance revolutionary”. A polemic debate followed on LitNet and in the Afrikaans press. In an email to friends, Breyten announced that he was withdrawing from participating in group activities.
The following year (2001), Breyten’s play Die toneelstuk elicited dramatically negative responses from the audience at the KKNK. This escalated into an irresponsible online campaign in Die Burger, culminating in a “volkstemming” that Breyten should be “vervreemd”. In an English letter published in this newspaper, he apologised if the impression had ever been created that he was part of the “volk”. He withdrew from the public arena – and even declined the offer of an honorary doctorate from UP.
In August 2002, however, he started to send new poems via email to friends. Sadly, this private distribution was made public as a piece of gossip on LitNet. It expanded into a flurry of letters on the platform and spilled over into the daily press.
This time, Breyten withdrew in earnest from the local scene. His focus shifted to his international projects, specifically his work at the New York University and the Gorée Institute, of which he was the executive director from 2002 to 2010.
Phase 5: After 2005
This phase in Breyten’s publishing and public career has been a long haul of 19 challenging and blessed years. I highlight a few signposts along the road, focusing on significant developments (and not chronology).
The language debate
Breyten returned to the local public domain in September 2005, when he reluctantly agreed to be a cosignatory with Van Zyl Slabbert and Hermann Giliomee of an open letter in Die Burger. They criticised the decision by Stellenbosch University (SU) to replace parallel medium with bilingual/double medium instruction in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. This letter acted as the impetus for an extended language debate at what was historically the first Afrikaans university in the country. During the following years, various language policies were adopted and implemented, eventually bringing about the deterioration of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and administration at the institution. Over the years (up to 2018), Breyten participated in many ways in this debate.
In January 2016, he was invited as guest speaker to the annual meeting of the university’s Convocation. In his address, he tabled his views on the language policy, the true vocation of a university, and the role of whites and Afrikaners in a rapidly changing society – because “we are all jointly responsible for a shared future”. During March of that year, a concept new language policy, which favoured English on all levels, was made available for public comment. Breyten addressed the vice chancellor in an open letter on LitNet and stated that this policy would be “die dood in die pot” (the death knell) for multilingualism at the institution.
In April, he founded Gelyke Kanse as a pressure group for Afrikaans. On the 22nd of June, the university council voted in favour of the proposed language policy. On 30 September, Gelyke Kanse (endorsed by the Convocation) brought a court case against the university to force the institution to set aside the latest language policy and to revise it. On the 25th of October 2017, the court dismissed the application with cost, and in 2019 the Constitutional Court upheld the verdict.
At the November 2018 annual meeting of the Convocation, Breyten was criticised by a guest speaker for his so-called “protection” of Afrikaans as an academic language at SU. On 19 November, Breyten reacted to the published speech and announced on LitNet that he would step aside and leave this struggle to others. He paid a high price for his unwavering views on the importance of the mother tongue and the pursuit of “making one another different together”.
Developments/debates/platforms
Although this phase in Breyten’s career may have been dominated by the plight/fate of the Afrikaans language, he would be drawn into other developments and debates and participate on various platforms.
On 26 February 2007, Grevilleas, this house in Wellington, which Breyten’s parents bought in 1953 to run as a boarding house and where his mother and father lived until 1974, was festively inaugurated as the Breytenbach Centre. Over the years, it has developed into a multidisciplinary cultural hub in the local community. Since September 2012, the Tuin van Digters festival, in which Breyten participated regularly, became an annual highlight on the writers’ circuit.
On the 25th of March 2008, Breyten delivered the opening address of the 11th Time of the Writer festival. He opened his address on a personal note, referring to being in the country as “an unsettling experience”. A contributing factor must have been the negative and even hostile reception in the English media of his latest book at the time, A veil of footsteps. His rather pessimistic address focused on the deteriorating state of democracy worldwide, in Africa and locally.
In December of 2008, his open letter to Mandela, still the most important local political public figure, was published in the American Harper’s Magazine. He listed examples of violence, abuse of power and corruption which were destroying the country. He raised specific questions concerning the realisation of a real democratic dispensation in the country. When sensational extracts from the letter were published in the local press, it created a furore, since the “foreigner” had no right to be critical.
However, 2008 also brought recognition. Die windvanger, with more than 100 new poems, received numerous awards: the WA Hofmeyr Prize, the University of Johannesburg Prize, the Protea Poetry Prize and the Hertzog Prize. The last of these was awarded during a formal occasion in the HB Thom Theatre of SU. Breyten’s acceptance speech was a kind of “report to the academy”, titled “O volk, meneer”. He did not hesitate to insult all and sundry, including the Afrikaners who have allowed Afrikaans to become poisoned by the ruling conservative establishment. He declared, however: “Ek het in opstand gekom teen die volk ook in die naam van die woord. In naam van die basterskap van die woord.”
During 2009, Breyten’s 70th birthday was celebrated in style, and included an extravagant “manifestation” in the town of Hengelo in the Netherlands, articles in the local press, a special number in an academic journal, and a seminar in the Breytenbach Centre.
Rumours of censorship and the concentration of power
In July 2010, the Bill on the Protection of Information served before Parliament. Strongly worded statements against the so-called “muzzle law”, as well as a proposed media tribunal, were issued. This included a writers’ petition initiated by André P Brink and Nadine Gordimer and signed by 400 South African authors. Breyten’s contribution to the protest was in the form of an article in the Sunday newspaper Rapport, in which he pleaded for protesting the bill, the advancement of “die Vrye Woord” and the establishment of a writers’ (trade) union.
It was not only the menacing cloud of formal censorship which impacted writers during the time of the “muzzle bill”. In February 2011, the mainstream media company Media24 advertised a position for a national editor for the books section of their newspapers (to replace the separate book section editors of the individual publications). This provoked widespread reaction concerning the curtailing of diversity of opinions and the concentration of power. A seminar on LitNet around the issue kicked off with a letter by Breyten, hinting at boycott action against Media24. During an extensive public debate, the need for a representative writers’ organisation was articulated.
On the 12th of March 2011, a writers’ meeting took place in Stellenbosch, and a committee (including Breyten) was selected to explore the founding of such an organisation. The next year, the Afrikaanse Skrywersunie (ASU) was founded. In the meantime, the local PEN Pretoria branch was reconstituted as PEN Afrikaans. The founding meeting took place on 20 October 2012, and the members of the ASU were incorporated. Since then, PEN Afrikaans has been a stringent critical voice against any unreasonable limits on freedom of speech, and of the media. Breyten contributed regularly to these actions.
Breyten fell victim to another kind of “muzzling”. In March 2015, the student movement and protest action #RhodesMustFall kicked off on the campus of UCT, during which paintings in the official collection were vandalised. By March of the following year, curators had compiled a list of artwork that had to be removed from the campus, since they were found controversial or offensive. This blacklist included works by prominent South African artists and three paintings by Breyten. Until today, there has been no information about the whereabouts of these paintings.
Addresses/participation on public platforms
After 2008 (when he opened the Time of the Writer festival), Breyten was again invited onto public platforms. In March 2013, he addressed a large audience of mainly young people in the Odeon theatre of the University of the Free State. He read from a bilingual letter to his daughter, Daphnée, conversing with her about the state of the world and the reality of the human predicament. In March 2014, he was the keynote speaker at an event organised by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, putting forward the theme of “utopian thinking”. In March 2015, he delivered a tribute to the late André P Brink on the UCT campus, during which he posed the question: “What will become of the writer as public intellectual? Is it still conceivable in the times we are living in?” In October 2016, he delivered the opening address at a conference, titled “African and diasporan African literature”, at UP. In 2015, a bilingual selection of his public “speeches”, Parool/Parole, was commissioned and published by Penguin SA.
On the 25th of May 2017, Breyten received the prestigious international Zbigniew Herbert Award for his “outstanding poetry and intellectual contribution”. The event was streamed online in South Africa.
His last participation on a public platform was at the 30-year anniversary of the Dakar expedition, which took place in June 2017 at the Spier estate. His views on the need for the contribution of minority groups and on the falling apart of the country due to the lack of intellectual, moral and ethical leadership, were not well received by all the participants.
Publishing history
Breyten did not only make his reappearance on the public stage in 2005 (with the open letter about the language dispensation at SU) – it was also the year in which his local publishing career took off again.
His first local book publication since 2001 by H&R was the second collected volume of his poetry, Die ongedanste dans (poems from 1975 to 1983). In 2007, the first completely new volume of poetry in nine years, Windvanger, was published. It was followed by A veil of footsteps and Oorblyfsel/Voice over – for the latter, Breyten won the Mahmoud Darwish Award for Creativity in 2010.
Four volumes of new poetry were published within five years: Die beginsel van stof, Katalekte, Vyf-en-veertig skemeraandsange and Die na-dood. The third volume of his collected poetry was published in 2016, titled Die singende hand (poems from 1984 to 2014). In 2019, the last major new volume of poetry, Op weg na kû, as well as a selection of love poems, Rooiborsduif, were published. Thereafter, no new titles appeared on the H&R publishing list.
Breyten’s creative outflow could not be stemmed by publishers’ decisions. He therefore endeavoured to find a steady platform through online publications. On Versindaba, he published both poems and mixed media texts from as early as 2017 until 15 September 2021. Six parts of the series “In die fragmentarium” were published from December 2022 to June 2023 on LitNet. His last published poem, titled “Elegie vir Pájaro”, appeared on 16 May 2024 on LitNet.
Two limited and numbered collectors’ poetry volumes were published independently: Oorblyfsel (under the author name Blackface) in 2014 by Pirogue, and Hokhokaai – Fragmente in 2021 by Hond. This last volume was launched virtually at the Breytenbach Centre during the lockdown.
The dancing poets
A highlight of Breyten’s career was the launch of the international poetry festival Dancing in Other Words / Dansende Digtersfees. The festival was a project of the Spier estate and the Pirogue Collective, with Breyten as curator. In an interview on LitNet, he emphasised that they envisaged the creation of a space where a deep, ethical imagination and the celebration of humble things (stones, words, dreams, light, music) could be confirmed and enriched by the point of view and the experience of “travellers” and “strangers” from all corners of the earth.
The first festival took place in May 2013. The group of local and visiting poets took part in a “poets’ caravan” through a “landscape of stone and wind and light and translation” on the West Coast. This was followed by two days of public discussions centred on the theme “The ethical imagination” and evenings of poetry recitals, music and dance. This approach set the stage for the second (2014) and third (2016) festivals.
Breyten 80 in 2019
The year in which Breyten turned 80 started off on a high note. His major solo art exhibition, The 81 ways of letting go a late self, opened late in 2018 in the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town. On the 3rd of April 2019, H&R launched Op weg na kû in the packed Book Lounge venue in Cape Town. This volume solicited high praise from critics.
Various celebrations and tributes were dedicated to him. During the eighth Tuin van Digters festival in September 2019, the book Breyten Breytenbach: Woordenaar, woordnar was launched. It is one of the titles in a series commissioned by the Akademie to honour winners of the Hertzog Prize. In October, the sixth Afrikaans colloquium of Ghent University focused on his work, and he delivered the annual Mandela lecture.
To conclude
In 2023, a Cape Town Civic Honour was awarded to Breyten. His last participation in the Tuin van Digters festival was in September of that year, in the form of a poetry performance with Dominique Botha and Rian Malan.
And this brings us back to where this journey started – at Grevilleas.
Breyten was never the violin player in the front room of the establishment or the “volk”. He consistently held the view that it is the role of the artist and public thinker to watch over the conscience of society: “Hy moet vooruit kan kyk en waarsku as hy dink ons raak die weg kwyt. … Hy moet sorg dat ons are nie verkalk nie. Hy is ons geheue en ons spaarbank, ons flitslig en ons horlosie – en as hy dit nie is nie, wie sal dit dan wees?”
His advice should be heeded: “Keep moving on, far beyond liberation. Nothing is won or established forever. Nor is it likely to be lost forever.”
Breyten, who referred to himself as an anarchist nomad, kept moving on – and we had to race hard to keep up.
**
Thank you. And thank you to Catherine du Toit, who walked the way with me.
Francis Galloway ©
Lees en kyk ook op LitNet, Voertaal en LitNet Akademies:
Breyten se lewensviering in Wellington: ’n lewe van woorde en vryheid
#altydbreyten 23 Februarie 2025, Breytenbachsentrum, Wellington – ’n fotobeeld
Tuin van Digters 2019 – video: Bekendstelling van breyten breytenbach, woordenaar woordnar
Francis Galloway se teks oor Breyten Breytenbach vir die publiek beskikbaar
Breyten Breytenbach luidt noodklok voor Afrikaans in Nelson Mandela-lezing in Gent
Gelyke Kanse-inisiatief bou momentum: Breyten Breytenbach rig ope brief aan US-rektor
US-konvokasie 2018: Breyten Breytenbach reageer op Jeremy Vearey se toespraak
Video: Breyten Breytenbach oor die impak van die Afrikaanse skrywer
Breyten Breytenbach se vroeë en tronkpoësie: ’n vergelykende stilistiese ondersoek
Afrikaanse digters in gesprek met Breyten Breytenbach as digter
Oortekening as vertaalstrategie in Breyten Breytenbach se oorblyfsel/voice over
Om Afrika te verbeel: Brugfuncties van Breytenbach en Gorée Instituut
Hoofman onder die praatboom: Breyten in FilosofieKafee-gesprek oor die staat as "treurige verhaal"
Luisterverhale: "fascistiese pampoen" deur Breyten Breytenbach, voorgelees deur Marcel van Heerden
Luisterverhale: "selfmoord 2" deur Breyten Breytenbach, voorgelees deur Marcel van Heerden