Dennis Brutus

Activist

• Born: November 28, 1924
• Birthplace: Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, Africa (now Harare, Zimbabwe)
• Died: December 26, 2009
• Place of death: Cape Town, South Africa

Biography

South African poet and antiapartheid political activist Dennis Vincent Brutus was born in Salisbury, South Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), on November 28, 1924, to parents who were both South African teachers. They returned to South Africa shortly after Brutus’s birth, where he was classified under South Africa’s racial code as “colored,” for being of African, French, and Italian descent. After graduating from Fort Hare University College in 1947, Brutus taught high school English and Afrikaans for fourteen years in nonwhite schools while becoming increasingly involved in political activism directed against the entrenched white government and its harsh institutional policies of discrimination under apartheid. A savvy political organizer, he led the fight to have South Africa banned from international sports competitions, most notably the Olympics, a move that directly led to his 1963 arrest for political activities. He was sentenced to eighteen months hard labor at Robben Island, the notorious high-security concentration camp off the South African coast whose inmates included Nelson Mandela. While on bail, he fled to Mozambique but was captured and returned to South Africa. On his second escape attempt, he was shot in the back at point-blank range, but survived his injuries and was sent to Robben Island. After his release from prison he was still placed under house arrest and prohibited from writing and publishing. In 1966, Brutus was given an “exit permit,” de facto exile, and left South Africa for England, and then the United States. Although US immigration officials tried to deport him in the 1980s, he eventually received political asylum. He taught at various American universities, including Swarthmore College, the University of Denver, Northwestern University, the University Texas, and the University of Pittsburgh.

His first and best known collection of poetry, Sirens, Knuckles, Boots (1963), was published in Nigeria through the efforts of friends while Brutus was imprisoned. It received international praise and the Mbari Award. The book reflected Brutus’s complex vision of political activism. The poetry, at times lyrical, at times conversational, although stridently voicing his opposition to apartheid, paralleled the passion of political activist with the passion of a man for a woman, and ultimately the passion of the poet for art, creating verse that, like W. H. Auden’s and Pablo Neruda’s, transcends the narrow definition of political protest poetry. Using the flexible metaphor of isolation, Brutus constructs poetry that is at once political and personal, at once despairing and hopeful. His Letters to Martha, and Other Poems from a South African Prison (1968) stripped his poetic line to the stark immediacy of everyday speech as he recounted the sickening indignities of prison life. Simple Lust (1973) returned Brutus to his defining theme: the titular passion is his burning desire for freedom for black South Africa. His collection Salutes and Censures was published in 1985, and Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader, edited by Aisha Karim and Lee Sustar, was released in 2006. The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography, edited by Bernth Lindfors, was published posthumously in 2011.

With the collapse of the apartheid system in the early 1990s and Nelson Mandela’s emergence into international political prominence, Brutus’s poetry enjoyed an international rediscovery as a voice of the struggle of the human spirit for freedom in postcolonial literatures. In 1987, he was awarded the prestigious Langston Hughes Award. He continued to write passionately on political issues, most notably global environmental mismanagement and the economic plight of Third World countries. Ultimately, by merging Western poetic traditions, especially the metaphysical conceits of John Donne and the visionary politics of William Butler Yeats, with the Third World struggle for political freedom, Brutus’s most important contribution is verse that articulates with uncompromising authority the irrepressible urge of the human mind for political and social freedom.

Brutus died in Cape Town, South Africa, on December 26, 2009. He was eighty-five years old.

Bibliography

Collett, Anne. “Poetry, Activism And Cultural Capital.” Australian Literary Studies 28.4 (2013): 106–17. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

“Dennis Brutus.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Duodu, Cameron. “Dennis Brutus Obituary.” Guardian. Guardian News & Media, 23 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Duodu, Cameron. “Et Tu, Brute?” New African 494 (2010): 86. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Martin, Douglas. “Dennis Brutus Dies at 85; Fought Apartheid with Sports.” New York Times. New York Times, 2 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.