Afrikaans writer and anti-apartheid poet Breyten Breytenbach dies at the age of 85

His family confirmed that South African writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach died over the weekend in Paris.

“He passed away peacefully in Paris (France) at the age of 85 – with his wife Yolande by his side,” Breytenbach’s family confirmed in a statement.

A family statement described him as a famous South African writer whose work “has profoundly shaped literature and art, both at home and abroad.”

Interested in art and poetry from the age of 15 and impressed by the reputation of the University of Cape Town’s fine arts faculty, he enrolled at the English-speaking university.

READ ALSO: SA novelist JM Coetzee is not dead, as false account X claims

Afrikaner against apartheid

In 1983, Breytenbach gave a candid interview to The Times. New York Times about his fight against the apartheid government, which ultimately drove him from his country of birth to Paris.

He said he would never reject Afrikaans as a language, but as part of the “African political identity”.

“I no longer consider myself an Afrikaner. In fact, I prefer to consider myself a citizen of the world. Here in Paris I feel at home. I’m Parisian! But Afrikaans. I have long believed that there was only hope for it if it was used in the fight against apartheid, but I think it is too late now. For Black people, it is a denial of reality and a humiliation.”

Breytenbach studied at the University of Cape Town and joined a group of Afrikaans poets and writers called Sestigers who wanted to highlight the beauty of the language while criticizing the racist apartheid regime.

At the age of 20 he left school and went to Europe, working as a porter at London’s Euston station, before taking up various jobs on the continent.

Breytenbach settled in Paris in 1962, painting, writing, teaching English and becoming fluent in French. It was around this time that he met his wife, Yolande Ngo Thi Hoang Lien from Vietnam.

The author published his first book of poems in 1964. He published similar works in subsequent years.

READ ALSO: Bobby van Jaarsveld and his wife announce their divorce

Life as a prisoner

In 1975, as his career was taking off, at the age of 36, Breytenbach was imprisoned for secret activities against the apartheid system.

He was arrested the same year while visiting South Africa using a French passport with the pseudonym “Christian Galazka”.

He was sentenced to nine years in prison for the intention with which he entered the country. The court found that trade union campaigns against apartheid constituted a threat to state security.

He served the first two years of his seven-year sentence in solitary confinement in a small cell.

The writer was released in December 1982 along with 27 other political prisoners, with Breytenbach being the first white man in 30 years to be released before his full sentence. His sentence was reduced from nine to seven years.

In an interview with the New York Times after his release from prison, he said his determination against the draconian system remained intact.

“I am even more disgusted by what is happening in South Africa than before because I have experienced things like the horror of all the hangings and the racial diversity even in condemned cells,” he said.

“My perception of the system has deepened and I am now more willing to see perpetrators also as human beings, prisoners of their own reactions. My basic reaction to apartheid is the same as before, but now my method of reaction will be different. I’m going to stick to my own path, through writing.”

NOW READ: “My heart is full”: Rachel Kolisi fulfills her daughter’s birthday wish