South African writer and anti-apartheid activist Breyten Breytenbach receives the 2017 Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, named after the anti-communist Polish poet and philosopher, at a ceremony in Warsaw, Poland on May 25, 2017.
| Photo Credit: AFP

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. He was 85.

Mr. 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.

Mr. Breytenbach is best known for “Confessions of an Albino Terrorist,” his account of his imprisonment and the events leading to it.

His work addressed themes of exile, identity and justice, his family said.

“Known for his masterful poetry collections in Afrikaans, as well as autobiographical works such as ‘The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist’ and ‘A Season in Paradise’, he fearlessly addressed themes of exile, identity and justice,” the family said in their statement said on Sunday (November 24, 2024).

Mr. Breytenbach was a poet, novelist, painter and activist whose work touched on and influenced literature and the arts both domestically and abroad, his family added.

He was born in the Western Cape province in 1939, but spent much of his life abroad.

He joined Okhela, an ideological wing of South Africa’s African National Congress, in exile, but remained deeply connected to his South African roots.

He is survived by his wife, Yolande, daughter Daphnée and two grandsons.