Breyten Breytenbach took apartheid belief by the scruff of its neck and upended it
He was probably the only truly internationally famous SA poet
09 December 2024 - 08:40
Breyten Breytenbach died last week at the age of 85, and Afrikaans media and social media accounts were inundated with eulogies, reminisces and confessions of love affairs. His poems and their many musical renditions are being recycled everywhere, chief among them the wistful, “I will die and to my father go.”
He was probably the only truly internationally famous SA poet, admired by both Salman Rushdie and a host of Islamic poets, by Christians and Buddhists, officially anointed with the highest accolades in SA, the US and France, his second country — he died in Paris from complications after a fall...
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