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Breyten Breytenbach (born September 16, 1939) is a
South African writer and painter with
France|French citizenship.

Breyten Breytenbach was born in Bonnievale, one of
the most beautifully situated towns in the Western
Cape, approximately 180km from Cape Town and 100km
from the southernmost tip of Africa at Cape
Agulhas. He studied fine arts at the University of
Cape Town and became a committed opponent against
the long held policy of apartheid. He left South
Africa for Paris in the early 1960s. When he
married a French woman of Vietnam|Vietnamese
ancestry, he was not allowed to return. The
Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and The
Immorality Act (1950) made it a criminal offence
for a white person to have any human sexual
behavior|sexual relations with a person of a
different Racism|race.

In France he was a founder member of Okhela, a
resistance group fighting apartheid in exile. On
an illegal trip to South Africa in 1975 he was
betrayed, arrested and sentenced to nine years of
imprisonment for high treason. Released in 1982 as
a result of massive international intervention he
returned to Paris and obtained French citizenship.

He currently divides his time between Europe,
Africa, and the United States. He joined the
University of Cape Town as a visiting professor in
the Graduate School of Humanities (from January
2000) and is also involved with the Gorée
Institute in Dakar (Senegal) and with New York
University|New York University.

The work of Breytenbach includes numerous volumes
of poetry, novels, and essays, many of which are
in Afrikaans, many translated from Afrikaans to
English language|English, and many published
originally in English. He is also known for his
works of pictorial arts. Exhibitions of his
paintings and prints were shown in numerous cities
around the world including Johannesburg, Cape
Town, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris,
Brussels, Edinburgh and New York.

Breytenbach was described as the only example of a
nice South African in the song I've never met a
nice South African. The song was written by John
Lloyd (writer)|John Lloyd for the satirical
British TV series, Spitting Image. 

He is the brother of Jan Breytenbach, founder of
the South African Special Forces Brigade|South
African Special Forces.

==Poetry in English==
* The Iron Cow Must Sweat (Die ysterkoei moet
sweet), Johannesburg, 1964 
* The House of the Deaf (Die huis van die dowe),
Cape Town, 1967 
* Gangrene (Kouevuur), Cape Town, 1969 
* Lotus, Cape Town, 1970
* The Remains (Oorblyfsels), Cape Town, 1970
* Scrit. Painting Blue a sinking Ship. (Skryt. Om
`n sinkende skip blou te verf), Amsterdam, 1972
* In Other Words (Met ander woorde), Cape Town,
1973
* Foot Writing (Voetskrif), Johannesburg, 1976
* Sinking Ship Blues, Toronto 1977
* And Death White as Words. An Anthology, London,
1978
* In Africa even the flies are happy, London, 1978
* Flower Writing (Blomskryf), Emmarentia, 1979
(Selected poems)
* Eclipse (Eklips), Emmarentia, 1983
* Buffalo Bill, Emmarentia, 1984
* Living Death (Lewendood), Emmarentia, 1985
* Judas Eye, London - New York, 1989
* As Like (Soos die so), Emmarentia, 1990
* Nine Landscapes of our Times Bequeathed to a
Beloved (Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan `n
beminde), Groenkloof, 1993
* The Handful of Feathers (Die hand vol vere),
Cape Town, 1995 (Selected poems)
* The Remains. An Elegy (Oorblyfsels. ´n Roudig),
Cape Town, 1997
* Paper Flower (Papierblom), Cape Town, 1998
* Lady One, Cape Town, 2000 (Selected love poems)
* Iron Cow Blues (Ysterkoei-blues), Cape Town,
2001 (Collected poems 1964-1975)
* Lady One: Of Love and other Poems, New York,
2002

==Prose in English==
* Catastrophes (Katastrofes), Johannesburg, 1964
(Stories)
* To Fly (Om te vlieg), Cape Town, 1971 (Novel)
* The Tree Behind the Moon (De boom achter de
maan), Amsterdam, 1974 (Stories)
* The Anthill Bloats … (Die miernes swell op
…), Emmarentia, 1980 (Stories)
* A Season in Paradise (Een seizoen in het
paradijs), Amsterdam - New York - London, 1980
(Novel, uncensored edition)
* Mouroir: Mirror Notes of a Novel, London - New
York, 1983
* The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist,
London - New York, 1983
* Mirror Death (Spiegeldood), Amsterdam, 1984
(Stories)
* End Papers, London, 1985 (Essays)
* Memory of Snow and of Dust, London - New York,
1987 (Novel)
* Book. Part One (Boek. Deel een), Emmarentia,
1987 (Essays)
* All One Horse. Fiction and Images, London, 1989
* Sweet Heart (Hart-Lam), Emmarentia, 1991
(Essays)
* Return to Paradise. An African journal, London -
New York, 1992
* The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution,
London - New York, 1996 (Essays)
* Dog Heart. A travel memoir, Cape Town, 1998
* Word Work (Woordwerk), Cape Town, 1999

==External links==
*http://www.stellenboschwriters.com/breyten.html
Stellenbosch Writers
*http://www.nyu.edu/fas/Faculty/Global/BreytenBrey
tenbach.html Breyten Breytenbach, Professor of
Creative Writing 
*http://www.dse.de/ef/nepad/breytenbach.htm NEPAD
and the New African Dawn (Keynote Address by
Breyten Breytenbach)
*http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/netti
me-l-0204/msg00150.html Open letter to General
Ariel Sharon (by Breyten Breytenbach)
*http://www.goreeinstitute.org/