Breyten Breytenbach

Descended from seventeenth-century Dutch settlers, Breyten Breytenbach was born in 1939, attended the University of Cape Town, and went to Europe at the age of twenty. He published his first collection of poetry, The Iron Cow Must Sweat, and his first volume of prose, Catastrophes, in 1964. After forming his own anti-apartheid group and returning to his country in 1975, Breytenbach was arrested and jailed as a political prisoner for seven years. He currently teaches creative writing at New York University.