SOURCE: "Breytenbach and the Censor," in Raritan, Vol. X. No. 4, Spring 1991, pp. 58-84.

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 collection Skryt is entitled "Brief uit die vreemde aan slagter" ("Letter from Foreign Parts to Butcher"), subtitled "for Balthazar." Skryt did not appear in South Africa. First published in the Netherlands in 1972, it was banned for distribution in South Africa by the Publications Control Board. In banning it, the responsible committee singled out "Brief uit die vreemde" and the list of the names of dead persons following it, reading the poem in terms of "very strict reference" to then Prime Minister Balthazar John Vorster and interpreting its ending as an accusation against the white man and particularly the Afrikaner. Numerous poems from Skryt were incorporated into...