Breyten Breytenbach dies in Paris

Prominent Afrikaans writer, poet and painter Breyten Breytenbach has died at the age of 85 years in Paris, France. 

A vocal opponent of apartheid, Breytenbach left SA in the early 1960s for Paris where he married Yolande Ngo Thi Hoang Lien of Vietnamese descent. This prevented him from returning to SA because of the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act. 

In 1975, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on charges under the Terrorism Act for treason on his clandestine return to SA that was intended to find members for Okhela, a wing of the ANC in exile.  

On his release in 1982 Breytenbach returned to Paris where he obtained French citizenship. 

DA justice spokesperson Glynnis Breytenbach said Breytenbach was widely considered to be one of Afrikaans’ most important poets and, throughout his long career, was awarded among others the Zbigniew Herbert International Literature Prize (2017) and the Alan Paton Prize for Literature. 

She said he had accompanied his friend and politician Frederik van Zyl Slabbert to the Dakar Conference in 1987 that paved the way for negotiations with the ANC.

He continued to work towards the establishment of a democratic SA and continued with his involvement with the Gorée Institute in Dakar, Senegal, after this, Breytenbach said. 

ensorl@businesslive.co.za