biografía        bibliografía




Breyten Breytenbach on South Africa, Zimbabwe, Israel
and America




AMY GOODMAN: Breyten Breytenbach is one of South Africa’s most famous poets. He’s also an award-winning writer and painter, well known as an anti-apartheid activist, outspoken advocate for justice around the world.

The exiled poet was born to an Afrikaner or white South African family in 1939. He moved to Paris in the early ’60s and became deeply involved with the anti-apartheid movement. In 1975, Breyten Breytenbach returned secretly to South Africa under a false passport. He was arrested, charged with terrorism and imprisoned for seven years. One of his most famous books, based on his experience in prison, is called The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist.

Today, Breyten Breytenbach divides his time between New York University, where he teaches creative writing, and the Goree Institute in Senegal, West Africa.

I talked to Breyten Breytenbach earlier this month in New York and asked him to paint a picture of contemporary South Africa.


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: Well, I think one needs to preface, whatever one says about South Africa, one tends to forget that enormous advances have been made since early ’90s. You know, to bring down apartheid, the system of discriminatory laws, segregation, it was a huge task. We’ve come a long way since then, but not necessarily heading in the right direction entirely.

The situation at the moment is that we are heading for national elections in very early in the new year. The majority party, which is the ANC, which at the moment has a two-thirds majority, will be appointing a new president. That is the constitution, South African constitution. The president is not elected by popular vote. We’ve just now had a split within the majority party, a breakaway group. They call themselves the Congress of the People. Their very name is being disputed in courts by the African National Congress, who says that Congress of the People is something so associated with the African National Congress party, nobody else should be able to use it. One doesn’t quite know yet whether there’s going to be a significant opposition, because really there is no opposition to the African National Congress.

We had a major meeting, a conference of the ANC last year at Polokwane, at what point—that was when Jacob Zuma was selected as the new president of the ANC, and thereby he will become the new president of South Africa. That’s also when the decisions were made to destitute Thabo Mbeki from power.

But the more interesting thing that happened there was, I think, a shift that a lot of people had been pleading for for quite a while, a kind of an activation of the—what’s normally referred to as the second phase of the South African revolution, the first one having been national liberation and bringing down the apartheid laws, racist laws. The second one ideally would have been moving towards a social, socialist revolution in a rather old-fashioned way, or rather, in ways that we became accustomed to from the twentieth century. In other words, for all practical purposes, a one-party state, with the political party—with the political power seated in the party and not in parliament or in government. And there’s a strong movement in that way. That’s probably part of the reason why you had a split within the ANC.

I think the split that happened is a good thing, in that it opens to new democratic space, confrontation of ideas, a new debate which had been absent for quite a while. It also probably will mean that the ANC, the rump ANC—they will still win the elections—may be held more accountable, because there’s been a huge problem ever since the ANC came to power. In fact, what has happened, I think I mentioned last time, is that we’ve had a growing gap between the rich and the poor. We’ve had what some people called a boardroom revolution, in other words, senior cadres for the ANC being taken into the capitalist boardrooms and becoming very rich in the process. But it really has not affected the daily lives of the majority of South African people.

We have an implosion of some essential institutions in the country, public health, to some extent public education, to some extent security. There’s been something like about 10,000 very localized acts of uprising all over the country over the last number of years, and people don’t normally know this. This has normally taken the form of people in a particular small village or township blocking the roads, complaining about the fact that the local officials are not delivering on the services, on municipal services, burning tires in the streets, kicking out the ANC officials, etc. So there’s a huge kind of a popular dissatisfaction with the track record of the ANC.

But I think, again, one should bracket that by saying that perhaps if one came to the country, the first thing that strikes one, from outside, if you know the rest of the continent, particularly, is how very vital and very alive the country is. Johannesburg is a huge metropolis. All the essential infrastructural features that you’ll expect to find in, say, the Western world, you’ll find in South Africa: roads and airlines, etc., etc., electricity most of the time. But it is accompanied by a very robust and, to some extent, a very lawless daily activity. Crime is a huge problem in the country.

We have not really achieved that which Nelson Mandela set out to do, in other words, building a new nation based on the reconciliation concept. I think that there’s been a kind of a fallback from that intention with the coming to power of Thabo Mbeki, so that what you have is a kind of a falling back into the component elements of the South African society. You have the resurgence of racism to a large extent. The people who were the beneficiaries of the previous regime, the apartheid regime, tend to withdraw behind gated communities, if they can afford to do so. There’s a huge exodus of competence. Something like 27 percent of people who have university education have left the country. And this is something that the country can very badly afford. And you have—concurrently to that, you have the arrival of very, very large numbers of people from elsewhere in the continent, because, of course, South Africa is the El Dorado and with attentions that that bring. So, South Africa is, at the moment, in a very fragile transitional period where I think we are realizing that, in fact, people were happy too soon. We thought we were out of the woods, and we’re not out of the woods at all...


AMY GOODMAN: Breyten Breytenbach, you also talk about the plight of children...


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: Yes.


AMY GOODMAN: You talk about the games of children—


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: Yes...


AMY GOODMAN: —even at school..


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: Yes. Yes, this is really, really a huge problem. I think that—you know, South Africa has always been a construct, right from the very early times on. When the first colonials went, they tried to create a colonial state. Afterwards, there was an attempt to make of it a colony, a British colony. After that, the apartheid state. Now we have a liberated South African state. But South Africa has always been premised on, to a large extent, social and political engineering. In other words, people move—huge numbers of people move across the country. People went to the north to the Gold Reef to work, for instance.

And with that came, of course, a breakup of many traditional structures, particularly family structures and family values, as well. So you have, together with this kind of a turnover population and a hybridization of cultures, you also have a distinction of traditional values, to a large extent. So you have many of the old laws and customs that are being questioned by the younger generation.

We also have a generation of young people who grew up in the late apartheid years, when the slogan was “Liberation before education.” So we literally have a whole generation of young people, younger people, who have not been socialized, who have not been educated, particularly.

We then have also all the young people who came back from exile, from the camps, who have been trained militarily and for whom jobs were not found. A lot of the very bad crime that we see in the country, in fact, is sort of perpetrated by groups of ex-MK people and other young people from within the country who take to arms and take to robbing, because that’s the only way they can possibly survive.

And I think, with that, with a very hurried and a very complicated attempt to integrate the schools, there’s been a deterioration in the educational system. People try to flee—as you see in other parts of the world, and I’m sure you see it in this country, as well—flee the poor areas to try and get into better schools. And that doesn’t necessarily always work very well.

So you’ve had—if you read all of this together—the bad economic situation, the bad security situation, the incompleted educational integration system—I think all of these are the underpinnings of the plight of the children in South Africa.


AMY GOODMAN: The issue of AIDS..


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: The issue of AIDS. One out of five people in South Africa live with HIV/AIDS. And for a long time, this has been denied by the government for complex reasons. Unfortunately, none of these valid.

We are now, finally, looking at the possibility of perhaps doing something about it. We have a new Minister of Public Health, Barbara Hogan, who is an excellent person. She’s just taken over as Minister of Public Health. And I think there’s going to be a real attempt made.

But it is calculated that probably something like 30,000 people died, who should not have died, because they were not being given the medicines that they should have been given, the antiretrovirals, for instance, because the government just denied the very existence of HIV/AIDS. They fought a very stupid battle against big pharmaceutical companies, which under most circumstances would be a valid one, claiming that AIDS is, you know, a Western invention, it’s an attempt to genocide of the African population, and the pharmaceutical companies are poisoning the population.

So we’ve been distracted by secondary considerations, when the real issue was what do we do to try and make it possible for people who are afflicted with HIV/AIDS to get the necessary medicine. How do we prevent the transfer of HIV/AIDS from mothers to children, for instance? That was a huge issue in the country. And how do we talk about this illness in such a way that it is not stigmatized and people are not excluded from society? Because that still is a big problem, too..


AMY GOODMAN: Do you think progress has been made??


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: I think there’s a growing awareness. I think that South Africa is only really now starting to feel the economic consequences of that, because it is affecting huge, huge sums of people. People in the country tell me that they spend one or two days a week just going to funerals. You know, this is a huge, huge concern, obviously.

And with HIV/AIDS, of course, come a whole slew of other things, such as tuberculosis, for instance, which is very widely spread in the country, or pneumonia. These days, people become vulnerable. People don’t—as we say in the country, you do not die of HIV/AIDS; you die of whatever illnesses you become vulnerable to, because of the repression of the possibility to resist it.

So—but I think, yes. I think it is from within a community. This is something I think is very important to remember. There’s a Treatment Action Campaign, TAC, which was a revival of something which is very powerful within the recent South Africa history, and that is the notion of civics, we call them, in other words, civil society organizations, associations, which group themselves to fight for the protection of the population and to fight the unjust laws. And the interesting thing is that this TAC, which is a very powerful civic now, is actually issued from the liberation movement. The liberation movement government had great difficulty dealing with the TAC, because these were their very own people who were trying to hold them to account.

I think the new minister is going to be interacting very closely with the civics, with civil society organizations. And I think she’s going to be very systematic in trying to do something about the problem.


AMY GOODMAN: Breyten Breytenbach, I wanted to move from South Africa to Zimbabwe and what is happening there..


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: Implosion..


AMY GOODMAN: Mugabe, the revolutionary leader who took over in the early 1980s, still there.


BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: Yes, yes. I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in South Africa, a wonderful African intellectual called Achille Mbembe, a few days ago. He was here in New York. He’s from the Cameroon originally. And we were saying that what needs to be done—I know it’s going to be a very painful chapter to open, but there’s been enough time now. What needs to be done is to assess the track record of liberation governments in Africa: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, obviously, Guinea-Bissau. All of these—Mozambique, Angola. In all of these instances, we had—Algeria, a very interesting case in point also—where liberation movements came to power as the vectors of modernity and of justice, of social and economic justice, and the regain of dignity of the people.

And somehow—and that is, I think, what we need to look at. It’s going to be a long and a complicated and a painful process. Somehow, we’ve seen that the liberation movements didn’t find it within themselves, probably because of the ideology, maybe also because of the many years of struggle and underground activity and having to remain very closely bonded together. They didn’t find the means to be able to open the ranks to a newer generation coming in. They didn’t seem to be able to consider the notion that we could have internal democracy and we should move to a second phase. We’re no longer in a liberation struggle. Perhaps it’s far more complex than that at the moment.

And I think if you read together with that the fact that in many of these countries, such as Algeria, for instance, and in the case of Zimbabwe also, unfortunately, very rapidly, you had power abuse, and you had corruption at the very highest levels. What one should remember in the case of Zimbabwe is that around Mugabe you have a close number of senior officials and particularly senior military people who are very, very deeply tainted by corruption. You know the war, the Zimbabwean forces going into the Congo, for instance, at the time, a few years ago, to defend certain mines, etc. All of that led to huge skimming off of profit.

— The South African Civil Society Information Service



BREYTEN BREYTENBACH poète, peintre et romancier est un personnage emblématique de la lutte contre l’apartheid. Fondateur dans les années 60 de l’Okhela, une organisation chargée d’organiser les réseaux de Blancs au service du congrès national africain - le mouvement de Nelson Mandela -, il est contraint de travailler depuis Paris, son mariage avec une jeune vietnamienne lui interdisant de revenir dans son pays. En 1975 pourtant, il se rend en Afrique du Sud, sous couvert d’un faux passeport, afin de recruter des membres pour son réseau. Arrêté, jugé et emprisonné, il échappe de peu à la peine capitale et passe huit ans dans la prison centrale de Pretoria. De cette expérience surgit Confession véridique d’un terroriste albinos, ouvrage d’inspiration autobiographique.

L’apartheid aujourd’hui terminé, Breyten Breytenbach n’en reste pas moins critique à l’égard de la politique menée dans le pays qui l’a vu naître et continue son combat pour le développement de l’Afrique. Désormais naturalisé français, il partage son temps entre New York, où il enseigne le "creative writing", la France, son pays d’adoption, l’Afrique du Sud, où il est désormais le bienvenu et le Sénégal. Il y dirige le Gorée Insitute, une organisation chargée de promouvoir la paix, la démocratie et le développement communautaire et culturel en Afrique.

Considéré comme l’un des plus grands écrivains sud africain, Breyten Breytenbach a d’abord écrit ses premières oeuvres en Afrikaans avant de les rédiger directement en Anglais. Auteur de recueils de poèmes et de romans partagés entre fiction, auto-fiction et réalité, il a largement contribué à dénoncer l’immoralité de l’apartheid et les conditions de détentions dans les prisons d’Afrique du Sud. Également connu en France et en Europe pour ses peintures (une grande rétrospective de l’ensemble de son œuvre fera l’objet d’une exposition cette année à Amsterdam) il vient de faire paraître chez Actes Sud un nouvel ouvrage qui prouve, une fois encore, son attachement à sa terre natale, lui l’Africain Blanc.


Bibliographie:

Le monde du milieu (Actes Sud, 2009)


—L’Empreinte des pas sur la terre: Mémoires nomades d’un personnage de fiction (Actes Sud, 2008, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—L’étranger intime (Actes Sud, 2007, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Le coeur-chien (Actes Sud, 2005, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Lady One (Melville, 2004, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Retour au paradis: journal africain (Grasset, 1993, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Tout un cheval (Grasset, 1990, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Mémoire de poussière et de neige (Grasset, 1989, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Métamortphase: poèmes de prison (Grasset, 1987, trad. Georges-Marie Lory et l’auteur)


—Feuilles de route: essais, lettres, interviews, articles de foi, notes de travail (Seuil, 1986, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Une saison au paradis (Seuil, 1986, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Confession véridique d’un terroriste albinos (Stock, 1984, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Mouroir: notes-miroir pour un roman (Stock, 1983, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


—Feu froid (Christian Bourgois, 1976, trad. Jean Guiloineau)


Argumentaire du Monde du milieu

Un recueil d’essais placé sous le signe de l’Afrique du Sud et de l’Afrique en général. Le regard d’un poète engagé sur l’état du monde actuel, avec des personnages qui traversent le livre et dominent le monde comme Mandela, Obama et Mahmoud Darwich…


Ce livre est un cri, un appel à la réflexion, à la remise en question. Un foisonnement riche d’idées, d’expériences et de rencontres. Ce livre juge, questionne, se positionne par rapport aux pouvoirs du monde capitaliste, à la globalisation de l’économie mondiale. Il lance un miroir accusateur aux nations qui depuis des décennies écrasent, repoussent, pillent ou utilisent le continent Africain ; il interroge sur la place de l’artiste en Afrique, sur son rôle comme sur son devenir, et sur ce qu’il advient de l’imaginaire dans un continent comme celui-ci : si terriblement désespéré, si concrètement désespérant.


Dans une langue très librement littéraire et au fil d’une quinzaine de textes, Breytenbach rappelle de façon récurrente aux lecteurs ce qu’ils tentent inconsciemment d’éviter, leur part de responsabilité, leur immobilisme, voire leur déni des faits. Dans une lettre à Mandela, à l’occasion de ses 90 ans. Breyten Breytenbach s’adoucit, écrit l’amitié et l’admiration mais ne passe pas pour autant sur ses déceptions face à l’état d’extrême violence de son pays d’origine, une situation que le vieux leader semble vouloir oublier. Dans un principe de kaléidoscope, il enchaîne ensuite sur Obama, étudie la ressemblance entre ces deux dirigeants noirs, et le rôle que tous deux incarnent ou endossent aux yeux des peuples. De textes en textes, qu’ils traitent de l’identité afrikaner ou de la terrible responsabilité de Sharon et de Bush au Moyen Orient ; de ses souvenirs de prison ou des clandestins morts avant même d’atteindre les Etats Unis, Breyten Breytenbach nous entraîne à travers les interstices du monde, dans une envolée pour rejoindre tous ceux qui, par leurs idées, leur cheminement, leurs choix, ont quitté leurs racines, leurs fondements, se sont arrachés à leur contexte premier, pour se redéfinir et accéder à un autre point de vue, pour créer une autre sphère de réflexion. Et voici qu’il révèle sous nos yeux ce monde du milieu, tout en nuances, différences, altérités, toujours en marge, et pourtant essentiel.

Présentation de L’Empreinte des pas sur la terre : Mémoires nomades d’un personnage de fiction : Poète, romancier, essayiste, Breyten Breytenbach se situe depuis toujours entre l’intime questionnement de l’écriture et l’engagement politique ; entre la fiction, l’autofiction et la réalité d’un intellectuel de notre temps familier du voyage, amoureux du mouvement. Vagabond : le monde habite son œuvre ; homme d’engagements : le tumulte et la violence de l’Afrique du Sud la structurent ; écrivain remarquable : le poème est au cœur de son être au monde. Dans ce livre, Breyten Breytenbach déploie cette singulière approche du réel, il convoque les événements qui ponctuent sa vie et la nôtre, les grands bouleversements de l’histoire, les visages et les voix croisés au cours de ses voyages. Puis il semble ralentir, s’arrêter, retrouver sa propre respiration, la sérénité de ses pas, redécouvrir la part secrète de son âme et ce qui depuis toujours l’autorise à poursuivre.

— Etonnants Voyageurs



BREYTEN BREYTENBACH is considered one of the greatest living poets in Afrikaans. He was born on 16 September 1939 in Bonnievale. He matriculated in 1957 at the Hugenot High School in Wellington and studied at the University of Cape Town. His first poems appeared in the student newspaper Groote Schuur in 1959. He left South Africa and went to Paris in the 1960s. He made his debut with the innovative volume Die ysterkoei moet sweet in 1964, and in the same year Katastrofes, a prose work, appeared.

After his marriage to Yolande Ngo Thi Hoang Lien (which means "Yellow Lotus"), a French woman of Vietnamese origin, he couldn't return to South Africa because of the Mixed Marriages Act. In 1973 a special visa was granted to him and Yolande and they returned, amid extensive media coverage, to South Africa for a writers' congress at the University of Cape Town. During a visit to South Africa in 1975 under a false passport, he was arrested on a charge of terrorism and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. After seven years he was finally released. He received the Hertzog Prize for poetry in 1984 for Yk, but refused to accept it.

Breytenbach's work includes poetry, novels, plays and essays, most of which are in Afrikaans and a number originally published in English. Most of his books are translated into several languages. He is also known for his artwork. Exhibitions of his paintings and prints have been held in various cities including Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, Edinburgh and New York. He received the Hertzog Prize for poetry in 1999 for en Oorblyfsels and Papierblom. His most recent collection of poetry, Die windvanger (2007), has been awarded the University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing, the Hertzog Prize as well as the WA Hofmeyr Prize.

He currently divides his time between Europe (he is a French citizen), Africa and America. He is involved with the Gorée Institute in Dakar, Senegal and the Columbia University in New York where he lectures in creative writing.


Did you know?

His two brothers are Jan Breytenbach, founder of 32 Battalion and 1 Reconnaissance Regiment, and the war correspondent and famous photographer Cloete Breytenbach.

In France he was a founding member of Okhela, a resistance group fighting apartheid in exile.

His pseudonym for the volume Lotus, Jan Blom, was chosen to suit the volume: a 'janblom' is a large rain frog.

Breyten also is the subject of films, like the German Prison mailbag X4 South Africa, a letter to Breyten Breytenbach that was shown on German television in 1983 and was made by Jobst Grapow.

His first art exhibition in South Africa took place in 1993 in Cape Town. Its title was Painting the eye.

He was elected to the World Council of the International Parliament of Writers in 1993, with the likes of Jacques Derrida, Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie as president.

In 1998 he was honoured as world citizen by the car manufacturer Volkswagen AG in Hannover, Germany.

Breyten and his ’n Seisoen in die paradys were the subject of several films in 1997 – among others one in English directed by the Swede Richard Dindo and one in French.

Breyten's much discussed play Boklied premièred in 1998 during the KKNK and received the De Kat Herrie Prize.

It also roped in eight FNB Vita Regional Theatre Awards for 1997/1998, for among others best production.

In February 2007 Breyten's parental home in Wellington was opened as the Breytenbach Centre.


Pseudonyms

He has used the pseudonyms Jan Blom (Lotus), Jan Afrika (Papierblom) and B.B. Lasarus (’n Seisoen in die paradys). Then there are also a number of BB names that Breytenbach has given himself in his poetry: Bullebach, Braakinpag, Buffalo Bill, Broer Bebe, Bangai Bird.


Banned books

In June 1975 his volume Skryt is banned by the Publications Control Board – three years after it appeared. In 1979 another volume with translations of Breyten's poems appeared titled And death as white as words. It was, however, banned by the South African Board of Censors.


Books still in print

Die beginsel van stof, Human & Rousseau (2011)

Oorblyfsel/Voice Over, Human & Rousseau (2010)

A Veil of Footsteps (Memoir of a Nomadic Fictional Character), Human & Rousseau (2008)

Die windvanger, Human & Rousseau (2007)

Die ongedanste dans: Gevangenisgedigte 1975-1983, Human & Rousseau (2005)

Ysterkoei-blues, Human & Rousseau (2001) Oorblyfsel/Voice Over, Human & Rousseau (2010)


Awards

A.P.B. Prize (1965) – Die ysterkoei moet sweet and Katastrofes

CNA Prize (1967) – Die huis van die dowe

Reina Prinsen Geerligs-prijs voor Zuid-Afrika (1968) – Die huis van die dowe

CNA Prize (1969) – Kouevuur

CNA Prize (1970) – Lotus

Lucy B en CW van der Hoogt-prijs (1972) – Lotus

Prix des Septs (1977) – All his literary work

Perskor Prize (1977) – Voetskrif

Special award from the Jan Camper foundation (1983)

CNA Prize (1983) – Yk

Hertzog Prize (1984) – Yk (refused)

Rapport Prize (1986) – Yk

CNA Prize (1989) – Memory of snow and dust

Helgaard Steyn Prize (1996) – Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan 'n beminde

Sunday Times / Alan Paton Prize for non fiction (1994) – Return to paradise

Hertzog Prize (1999) – Oorblyfsels: ’n roudig and Papierblom

De Kat-Herrie Prize at the KKNK (1998) – Boklied

W.A. Hofmeyr Prize (2008) – Die windvanger

University of Johannesburg Prize for creative writing (2008) – Die windvanger

Hertzog Prize (2008) – Die windvanger

Max Jacob Prize (2010) – Outre Voix/Voice Over (published by Actes Sud)

Mahmoud Darwish Prize – Oorblyfsel/Voice Over

Protea Poetry Prize (2010)


List of titles

Poetry

1964 Die ysterkoei moet sweet

1967 Die huis van die dowe

1969 Kouevuur

1970 Lotus (under the pseudonym Jan Blom)

1972 Skryt. Om 'n sinkende skip blou te verf

1973 Met ander woorde

1967 Voetskrif

1977 Sinking Ship Blues

1978 And Death White as Words. An Anthology

1978 In Africa even the flies are happy

1979 Blomskryf

1983 Eklips

1983 Yk

1984 Buffalo Bill

1985 Lewendood

1989 Judas Eye

1990 Soos die so

1993 Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan ’n beminde

1995 Die hand vol vere

1997 Oorblyfsels, 'n Roudig

1998 Papierblom

2000 Lady One (Love poem compilations) 2001 Ysterkoei-blues (Versamelde gedigte 1964-1975)

* 2002 Lady One: Of Love and other Poems

2005 Die Ongedanste Dans (Gevangenisgedigte 1976-1983)

** 2007 Die windvanger

2010 Oorblyfsel/Voice Over

2011 Die beginsel van stof


Prose

1964 Katastrofes (short stories)

1971 Om te vlieg (novel)

1974 De boom achter de maan

1980 Die miernes swel op ... (stories)

1980 A Season in Paradise (Een seizoen in het paradijs) (Novel)

1983 Mouroir: Mirror Notes of a Novel

1983 The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist

1984 Spiegeldood

1985 End Papers (essays)

1987 Memory of Snow and of Dust (novel)

1987 Boek. Deel een (essays)

1989 All One Horse. Fiction and Images

1991 Hart-Lam (essays)

1992 Return to Paradise. An African journal

1996 Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution (essays)

1998 Dog Heart. A travel memoir

1999 Woordwerk

2008 A Veil of Footsteps


CDs

2001 Mondmusiek

2002 Lady One


*Die Ysterkoei-blues: Die ysterkoei moet sweet, Katastrofes, Die huis van die dowe, Kouevuur, Lotus, Oorblyfsels, Skryt, om 'n sinkende skip blou te verf, Met ander woorde, Vrugte van die droom van stilte, Plakboek and Seisoen in die paradys and some unpublished verses.

** Die ongedanste dans: Voetskrif, Lewendood, Buffalo Bill, Eklips, Yk en Boek, "Die glimlag", a long poem published for the first time.


Translations

Die ysterkoei moet sweet
The Iron Cow must Sweat

Voetskrif
—1976 Footscript

Kouevuur
—Translated into French in 1976 by Georges-Marie Lory as Feu Froid.
—Translated from French into English, Arabic and Polish.

Skryt, om 'n sinkende skip blou te verf: verse en tekeninge:
—1977 English translation by A. Brink, R. Leigh-Loohuizen and D. Hirson
—1983 Dutch translation by Adriaan van Dis

Met ander woorde: vrugte van die boom van stilte
—1977 Dutch (Dutch title: Met andere woorden: gedichten 1970-1975)

De boom achter de maan: verhalen
—1974 Translated from Afrikaans by Adriaan van Dis and Jan Louter – mainly from Katastrofes

’n Seisoen in die paradys
—1980, 1985 English translation by Rike Vaughan
—1983 German translation by Arnold Blumer
—1984 Dutch translation by Adriaan van Dis and Hans Ester
—1986 French translation by Jean Guiloineau
—1986 Swedish translation by G. Peterson

Kreuz des Südens Schwartzer Brand: Gedichte und Prosa
—1977 Compiled by Pieter Zandee – translated into Afrikaans and Dutch by Rosi Bussink

And Death White as Words: An Anthology of Poetry of Breyten Breytenbach
—1978 Translated from Afrikaans by several translators.
—The collection was also translated into Portugese, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Dutch.

In Africa even the Flies are Happy: Selected Poems 1964–1977
—1978 Translated by Denis Hirson

Vingermaan: tekeningen uit Pretoria
—1980 With contributions from among others Lucebert

Mouroir: bespieëlde notas van 'n roman
—1983 French translation by Jean Guiloineau
—1984, 1985, 1994 English (Londen & New York)
—1985 Danish translation by Lars Bonnevie
—1985 Dutch translation by G. de Blaauw
—1986 Basque translation by Felipe Juaristi
—1987, 1989 German translation by U. Wiltmann

The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist
—1984 Danish translation by Mogens Boisen
—1984 German translation by D. Haug & S Oberlies
—1984 French translation by Jean Guiloineau
—1984 Dutch translation by G. de Blaauw en Adriaan van Dis
—1985 Portugese (Brazil) translation by MP Fereira
—1985 Swedish translation by T. Preis
—1986 Spanish translation by J.F. Felta
—1987 Portugese translation by W. Ramos
—1989 Italian translation by Maria Teresa Carbone

End Papers: Esssays, Letters, Articles of Faith, Workbook Notes
—1986 German translation by M. Müller as Schlussakte Südafrika
—1986 Dutch translation by G. de Blaauw and M. Polman as De andere kant van de vrijheid
—1986 French translation by Jean Guiloineau

Judas Eye; and, Self-portrait/Deathwatch
—1988 Translated by author and Denis Hirson

Memory of Snow and Dust
—1989 French translation by Jean Guiloineau
—Italian translation as Memoria di neve e di polvere

All One Horse: Fictions and Images
—1990 French translation by Jean Guiloineau

Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan 'n beminde
—1995 Dutch translation by Adriaan van Dis

Return to Paradise
—1993 Dutch translation by Mea Flothuis

Dog Heart: a Travel Memoir
—1999 Dutch translation by Ellen Beek

Lady One: 99 liefdesgedigte
—2000 Translated into English and Dutch

Die windvanger (2007)
—2007 The Wind Catcher


Reviews

A Veil of Footsteps stays with you, creeps into your brain where it sings beautiful bird songs.” – Fred de Vries, The Weekender (2008)

A Veil of Footsteps is a highly readable travelogue written by a man in the autumn of his life, who gazes at the beauty, contradictions, death and destruction around him. Sometimes it fills him with rage, other times he revels in ecstasy, and occasionally he experiences a “powerless nostalgia”. He does this in a language of such beauty that it now and again makes you gasp for air.” – Fred de Vries, The Weekender (2008)

“Nomadic and polyglot, Breytenbach writes lyrically and — despite or because of the unorthodoxy — with hypnotic appeal, of experiences and encounters in Europe, Africa, America and the mysterious territories of the mind.” – Moira Lovell, The Witness (2008)

“Breytenbach’s is a strong voice and there is much of interest to read of a life lived with intensity, curiosity and perspicacity wherever in the world he has found himself.” – Moira Lovell, The Witness (2008)

Sources: LitNet, Media24 newspapers