SOURCE: "An Afrikaner Trapped in No Man's Land," in Manchester Guardian Weekly, Vol. 150, No. 2, January 9, 1994, p. 28.

In the following review, Wood and Breytenbach discuss major themes in Return to Paradise.

In 1975, the South African poet and painter Breyten Breytenbach was arrested at the airport at Johannesburg, on his way back to his home in France. Working under a false identity, he had been recruiting agents for an underground movement in exile called Okhela. For an hour he attempted to convince his captors that, far from understanding Afrikaans, he was in fact an Italian professor. But he had been trailing secret policeman behind him like a shoelace since his arrival. They knew exactly who he was: he was the famous Afrikaner poet Breyten Breytenbach, and brother of the even more famous war hero and patriot, Jan. They had probably read his poetry.

Breytenbach was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment...