Return to Paradise

Breyten Breytenbach is one of South Africa's foremost but for years he has had a complex and painful relationship with his home country. In 1973 after thirteen years in exile he was permitted a three-month visit there. A Season in Paradise the first part of his triptych about South Africa is an account of that bittersweet trip: A spiritual journey an earthly travelog a poet's chronicle of his soul the mythic biography of a country an exotic picture album a revolutionary treatise a wrenching lament for a dying species the book is all of these (Andrei Codrescu).<P>In 1975 Breytenbach returned to South Africa illegally. He was arrested tried for terrorism and served seven years in prison two of them in solitary confinement. On his release he recounted his harrowing experiences in The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist: It is a reasonable metaphor to describe this book as an explosive device ticking away at the very foundations of the idea of a white nationalism in Africa (The New York Times Book Review front page).<P>In 1991 after Nelson Mandela had been freed and the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) had been lifted Breytenbach returned to South Africa for yet another three-month-long foray. For his account of that third trip Return to Paradise he was awarded the prestigious Alan Paton Prize.