Breyten Breytenbach, celebrated poet, painter, novelist, playwright, essayist, and human rights activist, was born in South Africa in 1939. He established the anti-apartheid group Okhela and from 1975-1982 he was a political prisoner. He has received numerous awards, including the Alan Paton Award for Literature, the Hertzog Prize, and the Jacobus van Looy Prize for Literature and Art. He has published a vast number of articles, essays, and books in many languages and had solo exhibitions of his artwork in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, Brussels, and Edinburgh. His most recent poetry collection is The Principle of Dust.