In all [Breytenbach's] work the most constant source of inspiration has been Zen Buddhism. As such, it is a dazzling marriage of the real, the ordered, the rigorously disciplined world of the senses on the one hand, and the mystical and imaginary on the other. Essentially, Breytenbach's is an imagination prodded and prompted by the visual—one is never allowed to forget that this is a painter at work—while, in its turn, the visual is infused and informed by fantasy, much in the same way as it occurs in the paintings of that astounding medieval modernist, Hieronymus Bosch, another pervading influence in the work of Breytenbach. In a more modern context, one may find exciting links between the poetry of Breytenbach and the work of the French Symbolists (notably Lautréamont and Rimbaud, the latter being a primary source of inspiration in A Season in Paradise), the...