The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist
by Breyten Breytenbach
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Description
A memoir of Breytenbach's seven years in South Africa's prisons - two of them in solitary confinement - this book captures the full horror of life in one of the worst penal systems in the world.Tags
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DromJohn Des Pres connects Breytenbach to William Butler Yeats, Bertolt Brecht, Thomas McGrath into the bardic tradition.
Member Reviews
Easily one of the most searing memoirs I have ever read. Breytenbach is unflinching in regards to both himself and South Africa, unafraid to show either in a bad light. There are images in this book, a book I read over twenty years ago, that I have never forgotten. The most original memoir I can ever recall reading.
Book 138
The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist.
Breyten Breytenbach.
On an illegal clandestine trip to South Africa in 1975 he was arrested and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for high treason: his work The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist describes aspects of his imprisonment. According to André Brink, Breytenbach was retried in June 1977 on new and fanciful charges that, among other things, he had planned a Russian submarine attack on the prison at Robben Island through the conspiratorial "Okhela Organisation." In the end, the judge found him guilty only of having smuggled letters and poems out of jail, for which he was fined 50 dollars.
Nick Wannan
The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist.
Breyten Breytenbach.
On an illegal clandestine trip to South Africa in 1975 he was arrested and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for high treason: his work The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist describes aspects of his imprisonment. According to André Brink, Breytenbach was retried in June 1977 on new and fanciful charges that, among other things, he had planned a Russian submarine attack on the prison at Robben Island through the conspiratorial "Okhela Organisation." In the end, the judge found him guilty only of having smuggled letters and poems out of jail, for which he was fined 50 dollars.
Nick Wannan
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Author Information
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Breyten Breytenbach teaches in the Creative Writing Department at New York University.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist
- Original publication date
- 1983
- People/Characters
- Breyten Breytenbach
- Important places
- South Africa
- Epigraph
- Others do not know my nature.
As I know not the nature of others,
The nature of things as that of men,
Just like universal nature.
This universal nature is like my partial one.
If I were to know my nature well,... (show all)
I should be knowing universal nature.
Quoted in 'Taj-ji Quan' by Jean Gortais. - First words
- The name you will see under this document is Breyten Breytenbach. That is my name.
- Blurbers
- Levin, Bernard; Gordimer, Nadine
- Original language*
- Engels
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 839.3 — Literature & rhetoric German & related literatures Other Germanic literatures Netherlandish literatures
- LCC
- PT6592.12 .R4 .Z475 — Language and Literature German, Dutch and Scandinavian literatures Afrikaans literature Individual authors or works
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 157
- Popularity
- 207,917
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.96)
- Languages
- 6 — Danish, Dutch, English, German, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 13
- ASINs
- 3
