South African dissident writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach dies at 85
South African writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach, a staunch opponent of the former white-minority government’s apartheid policy of racial segregation, has died in Paris
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach, a staunch opponent of the former white-minority government’s apartheid policy of racial oppression, has died in Paris, his family announced Sunday. He was 85.
Breytenbach was a celebrated wordsmith, a leading voice in literature in Afrikaans — an offshoot of Dutch that was developed by white settlers — and a fierce critic of apartheid that was imposed against the country's Black majority between 1948 and 1990.
He moved to Paris but on a clandestine trip to his home country in 1975 he was arrested on allegations that he assisted Nelson Mandela’s then-outlawed African National Congress group in its sabotage campaign against the white-minority government.
He was convicted of treason and served seven years in prison. Upon his release he based himself in Paris, where he continued his anti-apartheid activism.
