André P. Brink
| André Brink | |
|---|---|
André Brink in Lyon, France, June 2007
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| Born | André Philippus Brink 29 May 1935 Vrede, South Africa |
| Died | 6 February 2015 (aged 79) On a flight from the Netherlands to South Africa |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | Afrikaans, English |
| Nationality | South African |
| Alma mater |
University of Potchefstroom Sorbonne University |
| Notable works |
A Dry White Season An Act of Terror A Chain of Voices |
André Philippus Brink, OIS (29 May 1935 – 6 February 2015) was a South African novelist. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and was a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town.
In the 1960s he, Ingrid Jonker, Etienne Leroux and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the significant Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. While Brink's early novels were especially concerned with apartheid, his later work engaged the new range of issues posed by life in a democratic South Africa.
Brink was born in Vrede, in the Free State. Brink moved to Lydenburg, where he matriculated at Hoërskool Lydenburg in 1952 with seven distinctions, the second student from the then Transvaal to achieve this feat and studied Afrikaans literature in the Potchefstroom University of South Africa. His immense attachment with literature carried him to France from 1959 to 1961, where he got his degree from Sorbonne University at Paris in comparative literature.
During his stay, he came across an undeniable fact that changed his mind forever: black students were treated on an equal social basis with other students. Back in South Africa, he became one of the most prominent of young Afrikaans writers, along with the novelist Etienne Leroux and the poet Breyten Breytenbach, to challenge the apartheid policy of the National party through his writings. During a second sojourn in France between 1967 and 1968, he hardened his political position against Apartheid, and began writing both in Afrikaans and English to enlarge his audience and outplay the censure he was facing in his native country at the time.
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