Library Weekly

On 26 December 2009, South African activist, educator, journalist and poet Dennis Vincent Brutus died in Cape Town at the age of 85. He was best known for his campaign to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games.

Dennis Brutus was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1924 to South African parents. His family returned to Port Elizabeth when he was four. After graduating from the University of Fort Hare, Brutus became a teacher of English and Afrikaans at several high schools in South Africa.

While teaching, Brutus became increasingly involved in antiapartheid-related activities, particularly those concerned with sports. The South African government subsequently banned him from teaching, writing, publishing and attending social or political meetings. In 1963, Brutus was arrested for trying to meet with an IOC official; he was accused of breaking the terms of his "banning," and he was sentenced to 18 months in jail. However, while imprisoned on Robben Island, Brutus received the news that, due in large part to his efforts, South Africa had been suspended from the 1964 Olympic Games, a ban which would ultimately be extended to include almost all international sporting events until 1991.

Brutus left South Africa in 1966. He eventually settled in the United States where he served as professor of African Literature at Northwestern University and at the  University of Pittsburgh.

The political profile defines Brutus’s life. However, he was also the author of 10 volumes of poetry, beginning with 'Sirens, Knuckles and Boots' which was published in 1963 in Nigeria while he was in prison.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Selected publications

Publications by Dennis Brutus

Still the sirens / Dennis Brutus. - Santa Fe : Pennywhistle Press, 1993

Salutes and censures / Dennis Brutus. - Enugu : Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1984

Stubborn hope : new poems and selections from China poems and Strains / Dennis Brutus. - London [etc.] : Heinemann, 1978

Strains / Dennis Brutus. - Austin, Tex : Troubadour Press, [1975]

Letters to Martha : and other poems from a South African prison / Dennis Brutus. - London [etc.] : Heinemann, 1968

Publications about Dennis Brutus and his work

Dennis Brutus : the South African years / Tyrone August. - Cape Town, South Africa : BestRed, an imprint of HSRC Press, [2020]

Dennis Brutus and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee in exile, 1966-1970 / Matthew P. Llewellyn; Toby C. Rider.
In: South African Historical Journal, 2020, Vol.72 (2), p.246-271

The Dennis Brutus tapes : essays at autobiography / Dennis Brutus; Bernth Lindfors. - Oxford : James Currey, 2011

Poems of Dennis Brutus : a checklist, 1945-2004 / compiled by Andrew Martin. -  [Madison. Wis.] : Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, 2005.
https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/7KHX6DTIAMEIN9B

The conflict of voices in the poetry of Dennis Brutus and Maḥmūd Darwīsh : a comparative study / Randa Abou-Bakr. - Wiesbaden : Reichert, 2004

Archives

Dennis Brutus Papers, 1960–1984, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois

Dennis Brutus Papers, Worcester State University Archives, Worcester, Massachusetts

Dennis Brutus Papers on sport, anti-apartheid activities and literature, 1958–1971, Borthwick Institute, University of York

Dennis Brutus: I am a rebel

A portrait of Dennis Brutus, poet, veteran South African activist, still fighting for justice at the age of 80, seen through the eyes of Soweto filmmaker Vincent Moloi. Produced by Ben Cashdan & Vincent Moloi.

Timeline of 20th-century South African poets via DBpedia and Wikidata