South African writer and anti-apartheid activist Breyten Breytenbach died on Sunday in Paris at the age of 85, his daughter announced to AFP.
A poet, writer and painter, Mr. Breytenbach left his native country in the early 1960s to settle in Paris, where he became one of the most influential voices opposing the legal system of racial segregation in Africa. South.
Considered one of the best writers in the Afrikaans language, Mr. Breytenbach was the white cantor of the fight against apartheid, a fight which earned him seven years in the jails of the racist regime.
“My father, the South African painter and poet Breyten Breytenbach, died peacefully this Sunday, November 24 in Paris, at the age of 85”said daughter Daphnée Breytenbach.
Mr. Breytenbach published around fifty books during his life, including “True confession of an albino terrorist”his best known, taken from his time in prison, and numerous volumes of poetry, written mainly in his mother tongue, Afrikaans.
“Immense artist, activist against apartheid, he fought until the end for a better world. Naturalized French in 1982 upon his release from prison, he lived in Paris, while regularly returning to South Africa.according to his daughter.
The writer spent seven years in detention in South Africa, where he returned illegally in 1975, including two years in solitary confinement. Only his older brother, a special forces commander in the apartheid army, was allowed to see him.
French President François Mitterrand helped secure his release in 1982. Mr. Breytenbach then returned to France, where he obtained citizenship.
He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor and Commander of Arts and Letters, the highest cultural distinctions in France.
“Rebel with a tender heart”
Breyten Breytenbach was born in 1939 in Bonnievale, a small town in the Cape Province (south-west).
He will never tolerate segregation in his country, which he left at the age of 20, abandoning literary studies at the University of Cape Town. After a series of odd jobs in several European countries, he settled in Paris.
After settling in France, in 1963 he married Yolande Ngo Thi Hoang Lien, of Vietnamese origin. He nevertheless continued to travel regularly to South Africa, where interracial marriages were prohibited and punishable by prison.
South African writer and anti-apartheid activist Breyten Breytenbach at the “Etonnants Voyageurs” literary and cinematographic festival in Saint-Malo (France), May 31, 2009 / Fred TANNEAU / AFP/Archives
“His words, his paintings, his imagination, his resilience will continue to guide us”and this Daphnée Breytenbach.
“He leaves a huge void. He was the most exceptional being I have ever known. I am immensely proud to call him my father”she then added on Instagram.
In a statement, former French Culture Minister Jack Lang said “very sad to learn of the passing of (his) friend, the poet, painter and magnificent South African writer Breyten Breytenbach”.
“A rebel with a tender heart, he took part in all the struggles in favor of human rights. (…) South Africa, this rainbow nation so dear to Nelson Mandela, owes him a lot”said Mr. Lang, greeting his “impeccable French” et “his rare, uncompromising and refined literary work (which) always keeps a critical eye on the errors of the world”.
“A enlightener of consciences, Breyten Breytenbach will remain a light of our imagination and an example of the fight for all freedoms”concluded the former minister.
With an emaciated face and a thick beard, the naturalized French writer, known for his violent anger, had kept his capacity for indignation intact after the advent of multiracial democracy in 1994 in South Africa.
He quickly showed himself disappointed by the new elite, which he compared to a “endless parade of corrupt, incompetent, indifferent and arrogant clowns”.
Until his death, he divided his time between France, the United States, Senegal, where he directed the Gorée Institute for the Promotion of Peace in Africa, and brief stays in his native country.