Breyten Breytenbach

Breyten Breytenbach (born September 16, 1939) is a South African writer and painter with French citizenship.

Breyten Breytenbach was born in Bonnievale, one of the most beautifully situated towns in the Western Cape, approximately 180km from Cape Town and 100km from the southernmost tip of Africa at Cape Agulhas. He studied fine arts at the University of Cape Town and became a committed opponent against the long held policy of apartheid. He left South Africa for Paris in the early 1960s. When he married a French woman of Vietnamese ancestry, he was not allowed to return. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and The Immorality Act (1950) made it a criminal offence for a white person to have any sexual relations with a person of a different race.

In France he was a founder member of Okhela, a resistance group fighting apartheid in exile. On an illegal trip to South Africa in 1975 he was betrayed, arrested and sentenced to nine years of imprisonment for high treason. Released in 1982 as a result of massive international intervention he returned to Paris and obtained French citizenship.

He currently divides his time between Europe, Africa, and the United States. He joined the University of Cape Town as a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Humanities (from January 2000) and is also involved with the Gorée Institute in Dakar (Senegal) and with New York University.

The work of Breytenbach includes numerous volumes of poetry, novels, and essays, many of which are in Afrikaans, many translated from Afrikaans to English, and many published originally in English. He is also known for his works of pictorial arts. Exhibitions of his paintings and prints were shown in numerous cities around the world including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh and New York.

Breytenbach was described as the only example of a nice South African in the song I've never met a nice South African. The song was written by John Lloyd for the satirical British TV series, Spitting Image.

He is the brother of Jan Breytenbach, founder of the South African Special Forces.

Poetry in English

1. The Iron Cow Must Sweat (Die ysterkoei moet sweet), Johannesburg, 1964
2. The House of the Deaf (Die huis van die dowe), Cape Town, 1967
3. Gangrene (Kouevuur), Cape Town, 1969
4. Lotus, Cape Town, 1970
5. The Remains (Oorblyfsels), Cape Town, 1970
6. Scrit. Painting Blue a sinking Ship. (Skryt. Om `n sinkende skip blou te verf), Amsterdam, 1972
7. In Other Words (Met ander woorde), Cape Town, 1973
8. Foot Writing (Voetskrif), Johannesburg, 1976
9. Sinking Ship Blues, Toronto 1977
10. And Death White as Words. An Anthology, London, 1978
11. In Africa even the flies are happy, London, 1978
12. Flower Writing (Blomskryf), Emmarentia, 1979 (Selected poems)
13. Eclipse (Eklips), Emmarentia, 1983
14. Buffalo Bill, Emmarentia, 1984
15. Living Death (Lewendood), Emmarentia, 1985
16. Judas Eye, London - New York, 1989
17. As Like (Soos die so), Emmarentia, 1990
18. Nine Landscapes of our Times Bequeathed to a Beloved (Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan `n beminde), Groenkloof, 1993
19. The Handful of Feathers (Die hand vol vere), Cape Town, 1995 (Selected poems)
20. The Remains. An Elegy (Oorblyfsels. ´n Roudig), Cape Town, 1997
21. Paper Flower (Papierblom), Cape Town, 1998
22. Lady One, Cape Town, 2000 (Selected love poems)
23. Iron Cow Blues (Ysterkoei-blues), Cape Town, 2001 (Collected poems 1964-1975)
24. Lady One: Of Love and other Poems, New York, 2002

Prose in English

1. Catastrophes (Katastrofes), Johannesburg, 1964 (Stories)
2. To Fly (Om te vlieg), Cape Town, 1971 (Novel)
3. The Tree Behind the Moon (De boom achter de maan), Amsterdam, 1974 (Stories)
4. The Anthill Bloats … (Die miernes swell op …), Emmarentia, 1980 (Stories)
5. A Season in Paradise (Een seizoen in het paradijs), Amsterdam - New York - London, 1980 (Novel, uncensored edition)
6. Mouroir: Mirror Notes of a Novel, London - New York, 1983
7 . The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, London - New York, 1983
8. Mirror Death (Spiegeldood), Amsterdam, 1984 (Stories)
9. End Papers, London, 1985 (Essays)
10. Memory of Snow and of Dust, London - New York, 1987 (Novel)
11. Book. Part One (Boek. Deel een), Emmarentia, 1987 (Essays)
12. All One Horse. Fiction and Images, London, 1989
13. Sweet Heart (Hart-Lam), Emmarentia, 1991 (Essays)
14. Return to Paradise. An African journal, London - New York, 1992 (which won the Alan Paton Award)
15. The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution, London - New York, 1996 (Essays)
16. Dog Heart. A travel memoir, Cape Town, 1998
17. Word Work (Woordwerk), Cape Town, 1999

The paintings are the excellent portrayal of the events and scenes that we see around us. The painters are the best cameras of the world. They reproduce many different types of pictures. They even draw imaginary pictures that do not exist in this world. We tend to use both thinned oil paints and dense oil paints. Masterpieces can be dyed more than once, but each time it may be different from the existing paintings.h

Sitemap
Painter sitemap
Techniques sitemap
Materials sitemap