(poet, writer. activist)
today I went down on your body
while windows were thick white eyes
and hearkened the clogged cavities
in the small darkroom of your chest,
hedging an eternity over the aching voice
from your gorgeous throat,
agony and exaltation flow in one divide
if I may make so bold,
your thighs are a loveword your hair
night’s glittering lining of secret disport:
I aimed for the innermost moon
and rent, moved by the syntax and the slow
of sadness and of joy, so
I love you, love you so
when the blinding comes,
the discomposure of silence,
it must be high up the hills
where hundreds of poor
stamp their feet in the dust, and drums
and woman voices like this ululating skyline
gag the final ecstasy
Breyten Breytenbach died on 24 November 2024 in Paris, France. He was 85 years old. Breyten was a prominent South African writer, celebrated as a leading Afrikaner poet and a vocal critic of apartheid. He spent seven years in prison (1975–82) on charges of terrorism and became a French citizen during his self-imposed exile.
Born into an Afrikaner family in Cape Province, Breytenbach attended the University of Cape Town, an English-language institution. However, he left at the age of 20 to travel in Europe, eventually settling in Paris in 1961. His first poetry collection, Die ysterkoei moet sweet (“The Iron Cow Must Sweat”), was published in 1964, followed by several more highly regarded works in South Africa. In 1973, he was permitted to visit South Africa with his Vietnamese wife, who the apartheid regime classified as “Coloured.”
Around this time, Breytenbach became deeply engaged in anti-apartheid activism. In 1975, he re-entered South Africa under a false identity but was soon arrested and imprisoned on charges of terrorism. During his incarceration, he continued to write, producing works such as ’n Seisoen in die Paradys (A Season in Paradise, 1976). His prison writings, including Mouroir: Bespieëlende notas van ’n roman (Mouroir: Mirrornotes of a Novel), were published in 1983. After his release in 1982, he returned to Paris. His memoir, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist (1984), detailed his arrest and imprisonment, solidifying his global recognition.
Following the fall of apartheid, Breytenbach returned to South Africa in 1993 and later taught at the University of Cape Town from 2000 to 2003.