Dennis lived his life as so many would wish to, in service to the causes of justice, peace, freedom and the protection of the planet. He remained positive about the future, believing that popular movements will achieve their aims.
Dennis Brutus was a leading opponent of the apartheid state. He helped secure South Africa’s suspension from the Olympics, eventually forcing the country to be expelled from the Games in 1970. Arrested in 1963, he was sentenced to eighteen months of hard labor on Robben Island, off Cape Town, with Nelson Mandela (Democracy Now).
With the opening of the film Invictus, it should be noted that Dennis was instrumental in liberating South African sports from the culture of apartheid. His writings and teachings were banned in the old South Africa.
Dennis’s poetry, particularly of his prison experiences on Robben Island, has been taught in schools around the world. He was modest about his work, always trying to improve on his drafts.
His creativity crossed into other areas of his life: he used poetry to mobilise, to inspire others to action, and also to bring joy.
There will be a private cremation within a few days and arrangements for a thanks giving service will be made known in early January. [More here]
His close friend, Patrick Bond, adds in a letter from South Africa:
Dennis Vincent Brutus, 1924-2009
World-renowned political organiser and one of Africa’s most celebrated poets, Dennis Brutus, died early on December 26 in Cape Town, in his sleep, aged 85.
Even in his last days, Brutus was fully engaged, advocating social protest against those responsible for climate change, and promoting reparations to black South Africans from corporations that benefited from apartheid. He was a lead plaintiff in the Alien Tort Claims Act case against major firms that is now making progress in the US court system.
Some of his books are:
* Sirens Knuckles and Boots (Mbari Productions, Ibaden, Nigeria and Northwestern University Press, Evanston Illinois, 1963).
* Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (Heinemann, Oxford, 1968).
* Poems from Algiers (African and Afro-American Studies and Research Institute, Austin, Texas, 1970).
* A Simple Lust (Heinemann, Oxford, 1973).
* China Poems (African and Afro-American Studies and Research Centre, Austin, Texas, 1975).
* Strains (Troubador Press, Del Valle, Texas).
* Stubborn Hope (Three Continents Press, Washington, DC and Heinemann, Oxford, 1978).
* Salutes and Censures (Fourth Dimension, Enugu, Nigeria, 1982).
* Airs and Tributes (Whirlwind Press, Camden, New Jersey, 1989).
* Still the Sirens (Pennywhistle Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1993).
* Remembering Soweto, ed. Lamont B. Steptoe (Whirlwind Press, Camden, New Jersey, 2004).
* Leafdrift, ed. Lamont B. Steptoe (Whirlwind Press, Camden, New Jersey, 2005).
* Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader, ed. Aisha Kareem and Lee Sustar (Haymarket Books, Chicago and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 2006).
He is survived by his wife May, his sisters Helen and Dolly, eight children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren in Hong Kong, England, the USA and Cape Town.
(Memorial services are being planned in January-February for Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Washington. For more information contact
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