Breyten Breytenbach Summary

Breyten Breytenbach is one of the major postwar poets writing in Afrikaans, the language of the Afrikaners, South Africans of Dutch descent. He gained an international reputation with the publication ... Read more

Critical Essay by Barend J. Toerien The sensational background of the writing of these poems [Voetskrif]—the self-exiled poet's return to South Africa on a subsequently confessed subver... Read more

Critical Essay by Anthony Delius Much of the latter part of [A Season in Paradise] reads like a Freudian prologue to the disaster that overtook Breytenbach well after it was written, when he went bac... Read more

Critical Essay by Sheila Roberts The full title of [Miernes, a] book of short prose pieces reads "The Antheap Is Swelling Yes the Fox-Terrier Gets a Weekend and Other Almost Forgotten Catastro... Read more

Critical Essay by Barend J. Toerien The poems [in Blomskryf: Uit die gedigte van Breyten Breytenbach en Jan Blom] are arranged in two sections: the "how" of poetry—its nature, it... Read more

Critical Essay by Desmond Graham Love poems [and poems about politics each] comprise about half the work in the two new translations of the Afrikaans poet Breyten Breytenbach [and death white as word... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Theroux Using the framework of his return to South Africa after 13 years' absence, Mr. Breytenbach fashions a reminiscence of his childhood with a meditation on the pres... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Hall A Season in Paradise is an exciting, and often amusing, travelogue, recounting the journey the poet made with his Vietnamese wife through the sunlit lands of his youth.... Read more

In the following essay, Coetzee examines Breytenbach's notions of self and other in his writings during and after his prison sentence. One of the major poems in Breyten Breytenbach's ... Read more

In the following review, Berner calls Memory of Snow and of Dust a "remarkable development" in Breytenbach's literary canon. Since his release from prison, Breyten Breytenbach ... Read more

In the following review, van Vuuren finds Hart-lam valuable to an understanding of Breytenbach's political and artistic vision. Breyten Breytenbach is a complex phenomenon: painter, poet, pr... Read more

In the following review, Coetzee offers praise for Return to Paradise. In 1960 Breyten Breytenbach left his native South Africa to live in Paris, where he wrote poetry and painted. There he fell in... Read more

In the following review, Wood and Breytenbach discuss major themes in Return to Paradise. In 1975, the South African poet and painter Breyten Breytenbach was arrested at the airport at Johannesburg... Read more

In the following review, Schwartz examines revelations made in Breytenbach's The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist and reflects on his own involvement in the political movement to support... Read more

In the following review, Toerien offers a positive assessment of Die hand vol vere. A selection of Breyten Breytenbach's poetry made by his friend and academic Ampie Coetzee has the disarmin... Read more

In the following review, Toerien calls Breytenbach's Lewendood both "rich and generous" in its poetic intentions. Breytenbach's fourth published volume of poems written ... Read more

In the following review, Campbell praises Mouroir and The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist but finds End Papers somewhat self-satisfied and unworthy of publication. Seven years' impri... Read more

In the following review, Kratz offers high praise for End Papers. Breyten Breytenbach spent seven years (1975–82) in a South African prison, two of them in solitary confinement, for "... Read more