SOURCE: Review of Hart-lam, in World Literature Today, Vol. 66, No. 4, Autumn 1992, pp. 763-64.

In the following review, van Vuuren finds Hart-lam valuable to an understanding of Breytenbach's political and artistic vision.

Breyten Breytenbach is a complex phenomenon: painter, poet, prose writer, exile, ex-convict, and "terrorist," as well as public figure in the South African political and literary arena. He publishes creative work both in Afrikaans and in English, and these works span many genres. Between 1964 and 1991 he produced fourteen collections of poetry—all of them in Afrikaans, with English translations of some of his prison poetry (of which there are five collections) published in Judas Eye, and Self Portrait/Deathwatch. Apart from three books containing short prose pieces, he has also published two novels in Afrikaans, one in English (Memory of Snow and of Dust, 1988), a poetic manifesto, a travel journal (A Season in Paradise, 1976), and a collection...