Sestigers

Last updated

The Sestigers (Sixtiers), also known as the Beweging van Sestig [1] [2] ("the movement of the sixties"), were a dissident literary movement of Afrikaans-language poets and writers in South Africa under apartheid. The movement was started in the beachside Cape Town suburb of Clifton during the early 1960s by André Brink and Breyten Breytenbach, under the mentorship of Uys Krige and Jack Cope, and in continuation of a tradition in South African literature pioneered in the 1920s by Roy Campbell, William Plomer, and Laurens van der Post.

The Sestigers sought to elevate Afrikaans as a literary language and use it as a medium for speaking truth to power against the extreme Afrikaner nationalist and white supremacist National Party and its policies of both Apartheid and censorship in South Africa.

Die Sestigers also included Reza de Wet, Etienne Leroux, Jan Rabie, Ingrid Jonker, Adam Small, Bartho Smit, Chris Barnard, Hennie Aucamp, Dolf van Niekerk, Abraham H. de Vries, and Elsa Joubert. [3] These writers had often studied abroad (mainly in Paris) and under the widespread influence of existentialism attempted to face the innocent writing of Afrikaans literature. Thus they aimed at a dissident literature in both prose and poetry by emulating both European literary modernism and postmodernism to tackle the political, cultural, and sexual problems of South Africa under apartheid and eventually led to a phenomenal growth in the Afrikaans art in later decades. Judy H. Gardner has called the prose and poetry of die Sestigers, "literature in exile in its own country". [4] In her biography of dissident poet Ingrid Jonker, Louise Viljoen called die Sestigers, "a cultural revolt within the heart of Afrikanerdom".

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breyten Breytenbach</span> South African writer and painter (1939–2024)

Breyten Breytenbach was a South African writer, poet, and painter. He became internationally well-known as a dissident poet and vocal critic of South Africa under apartheid, and as a political prisoner of the National Party–led South African Government. He was also known as a founding member of the Sestigers, a dissident literary movement, and was one of the most important living poets in Afrikaans literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ingrid Jonker</span> South African poet

Ingrid Jonker was a South African poet and one of the founders of modern Afrikaans literature. Her poems have been widely translated into other languages.

Mattheus Uys Krige was a South African writer of novels, short stories, poems and plays in Afrikaans and English. In Afrikaans literature, Krige is counted among the Dertigers. Uys Krige was, according to his friend Jack Cope, very much an exception among Afrikaner poets and writers of his generation due to his hostility to extreme Afrikaner nationalism, White Supremacism, and his literary translations of Latin American poetry by non-White authors into Afrikaans; which have had an enormous influence upon South African literature and culture. Later in his life, Krige served as a mentor and father figure to the Afrikaans literary movement known as die Sestigers; whom he convinced into speaking truth to power about the 1948–1994 rule of the National Party and its policies of both Apartheid and censorship in South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">André Brink</span> South African writer (1935–2015)

André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist, essayist and poet. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and taught English at the University of Cape Town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven</span> South African poet who wrote Die Stem (1873–1932)

Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven, who published under his initials C.J. Langenhoven, was a South African poet who played a major role in the development of Afrikaans literature and cultural history. His poetry was one of the then young language's foremost promoters. He is best known for writing the words for "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika", which was used previously as the national anthem during apartheid. He was affectionately known as Sagmoedige Neelsie or Kerneels. His childhood friend who helped him get into poetry was called Hans Conrodius van Zyl.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antjie Krog</span> South African poet, philosopher, academic, and writer (born 1911)

Antjie Krog is a South African writer and academic, best known for her Afrikaans poetry, her reporting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and her 1998 book Country of My Skull. In 2004, she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape as Extraordinary Professor.

The poetry of South Africa covers a broad range of themes, forms and styles. This article discusses the context that contemporary poets have come from and identifies the major poets of South Africa, their works and influence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugène Marais</span> South African lawyer, naturalist, poet and writer

Eugène Nielen Marais was a South African lawyer, naturalist, and important writer and poète maudit in the Second Language Movement of Afrikaans literature. Since his death by his own hand, Marais has been widely hailed as a literary and scientific genius and a cultural hero of the Afrikaner people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marlene van Niekerk</span> South African poet, writer, and academic

Marlene van Niekerk is a South African poet, writer, and academic. She is best known for her novels, the satirical tragicomedy Triomf (1994) and the Hertzog-winning Agaat (2004), which explore themes including the family, the change in power dynamics occasioned by the end of Apartheid, and inequalities of race, gender, and class. Van Niekerk is also an award-winning poet. She writes in her native tongue, Afrikaans, and teaches at Stellenbosch University.

Robert Knox ″Jack″ Cope was a South African novelist, short story writer, poet and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South African literature</span>

South African literature is the literature of South Africa, which has 11 national languages: Afrikaans, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Pedi, Tswana, Venda, Swazi, Tsonga and Ndebele.

Afrikaans literature is literature written in Afrikaans. Afrikaans is the daughter language of 17th-century Dutch and is spoken by the majority of people in the Western Cape of South Africa and among Afrikaners and Coloured South Africans in other parts of South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini. Afrikaans was historically one of the two official languages of South Africa, the other being English, but it currently shares the status of an "official language" with ten other languages.

Adam Small was a South African writer who was involved in the Black Consciousness Movement and other activism. He was noted as a Coloured writer who wrote works in Afrikaans that dealt with racial discrimination and satirized the political situation. Some collections include English poems, and he translated the Afrikaans poet N P van Wyk Louw into English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Blum</span>

Peter Emil Julius Blum was an Afrikaans poet. As a child, he emigrated to the Union of South Africa with his family. From an early age Blum was already able to speak several languages, including German and Italian.

Johann de Lange is an Afrikaans poet, short story writer and critic.

The Ingrid Jonker Prize is a literary prize for the best debut work of Afrikaans or English poetry. It was instituted in honour of Ingrid Jonker after her death in 1965.

Christian Johan Barnard, known as Chris Barnard, was a South African author and movie scriptwriter. He was known for writing Afrikaans novels, novellas, columns, youth novels, short stories, plays, radio dramas, film scripts and television dramas.

<i>Black Butterflies</i> 2011 Dutch film

Black Butterflies is an English-language Dutch drama film about the life of South-African Afrikaans poet and anti-apartheid political dissident Ingrid Jonker. The film was directed by Paula van der Oest and premiered in the Netherlands on February 6 before being released on 31 March 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marjorie Wallace (artist)</span> Scottish artist working in South Africa

Marjorie Wallace OIB was a Scottish-born South African artist, known for her ties to the Sestigers literary movement.

Tydskrif vir Letterkunde is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering African literature. The editor-in-chief is Hein Willemse.

References

  1. ↑ "Chris Barnard (1939– )". www.litnet.co.za. 14 October 2008. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 30 March 2010.[ dead link ]
  2. ↑ Heilna du Plooy (1 April 2003). Spore in die sand – 'n herbeskouing van die oeuvre van C.M. van den Heever. (Research Articles). English abstract, Dutch text, Critical Essay. Literator: Journal of Literary Criticism, comparative linguistics and literary studies. Retrieved 30 March 2010.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. ↑ "Own a piece of history". ABSA/LitNet Living Legends series. 24 November 2004. Retrieved 30 March 2010.
  4. ↑ Gardner, Judy H. (1 April 1992). Impaired Vision: Portraits of Black Women in the Afrikaans Novel. Paul & Co Pub Consortium. ISBN   9789053830697.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.