The legacy of South African activist and poet Breyten Breytenbach

The World

Breyten Breytenbach was a towering South African intellectual, poet, painter and anti-apartheid activist who died in Paris on Monday at the age of 85. Breytenbach spent seven years in a South African prison for his activism against apartheid. He was also one of the foremost poets in his native tongue, the Afrikaans language, but managed to delineate between his love of the language and its association with apartheid. Marco Werman speaks with Max du Preez, a South African author and journalist who knew Breytenbach for more than 50 years.

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