South African dissident writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach dies at 85

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach, a staunch opponent of the former white-minority government’s apartheid policy of racial segregation, has died in Paris, his family announced on Sunday. He was 85. Breytenbach was a celebrated wordsmith, a leading voice in Afrikaans literature and a critic of the ruling party’s apartheid policy. He served seven years in prison in the 1970s for treason upon his return from exile from Paris. His work addressed themes of exile, identity and justice, his family said in a statement on Sunday. 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.