South African anti-apartheid author Breyten Breytenbach has died in Paris aged 85.
Breytenbach was a poet, novelist, painter and activist whose work touched on and influenced literature and the arts both domestically and abroad, his family said in a statement annoucing his passing on Sunday.
He is best known for “Confessions of an Albino Terrorist”, a book in which he recounts his conviction for treason in 1975 and his seven years in prison.
Upon his release Breytenbach based himself in Paris but remained connected to his roots. He notably joined Okhela, an ideological wing of South Africa’s African National Congress.
Today we mourn the passing of Breyten Breytenbach, 85, humanist whose strident and sustained literary assault on apartheid and its enforcers and endorsers traversed bookstores, domestic bookshelves, lecture halls, art galleries and theatre stages around the world.
My thoughts… pic.twitter.com/Oxj7lvUrwI
— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) November 25, 2024
Breytenbach was a celebrated wordsmith, a leading voice in literature in Afrikaans — an offshoot of Dutch that was developed by white settlers — and a fierce critic of apartheid that was imposed against the country’s Black majority between 1948 and 1990.
President Cyril Ramaphosa paid tribute Monday to a humanist who chanelled through his diverse art forms the militancy, tragedy and resilience of our liberation struggle.
He was born in the Western Cape province in 1939, but spent much of his life abroad.
