a.k.a. Breyten Breytenbach: Critical Approaches to his Writings and Paintings

by J.U. Jacobs (Editor), Judith Lutge Coullie, Judith Luetge Coullie (Editor)

The essays in this volume hold up for scrutiny, in diverse ways, many facets of the artistic output of Breyten Breytenbach, the Afrikaans poet who first became a public figure in apartheid South Africa - his poetry, his fictional and nonfictional prose, his plays, and his painting and drawing. The approaches adopted by the authors of the essays range from the largely theoretical to the more popular forms of the interview and the review.
Collectively, they represent a kaleidoscope of approaches, viewpoints and foci; their various critical and analytical colorations make up a timely statement about the centrality of this important artist's creativity, engagement, 'exile' and belongness to a land once impacting under its own contradictions and now experiencing an efflorescence that still harbours the paradoxes that Breytenbach's protean craft uncompromisingly anatomizes.

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most commonly available critical works on Breytenbach's writings and paintings, this is a good collection. It takes in all of Breytenbach's nonfiction writing as well as his poetry and paintings, while also tackling topics few others apparently wish to discuss: Breytenbach's perspective of women and homosexuality, in particular. While neither of these discussions shows the poet in a positive light they are nonetheless conducted in a considered, even sympathetic way. A number of other, more usual discussions occupy the pages --- on Africa, subjectivity, and the self in Breytenbach's work --- and are well treated.