Breyten Breytenbach is ‘a man of morals’

The South African poet and novelist who spends half his year teaching in New York City is usually roughed up by the media in South Africa, but over here he is getting a lot of love from east coast media. And rightly so.

First Harper’s Magazine publishes a long piece “Mandela Smile: Notes on a Failed Revolution” (billed for effect as an “open letter to Nelson Mandela.”) I get his sentiments, but what “revolution”? I thought we had a negotiated settlement?

Then he gets interviewed on New York City independent (and progressive) news show Democracy Now! (see at the 26 minute mark) where he is still called “the exiled South African writer” and now the Philadelphia Inquirer calls him “a man of morals.’