This year is the centenary of Dennis Brutus’ birth in 1924. He graduated from
Fort Hare in 1946 and taught English at schools until the apartheid regime victimized
him by firing him from all teaching posts. He was next placed under a banning order,
- including banning from publishing anything.
This meant that many of his poems from the 1960s had to be published under
pen names.
Dennis’ anti-apartheid campaigning focused on racism and segregation in
sport. He founded the non-racial SA Sports Association in 1958, and the SA Non-
Racial Olympic Committee in 1962. He tried to leave South Africa in 1963 without a
passport, was arrested and shot in the back. He was sentenced to 15 months in jail,
spent on Robben Island, five of those months in solitary confinement.
He is the author of 14 books. His first poetry collection was published in
Nigeria when he was in jail – Sirens, Knuckles and Drums (1963).
Dennis passed away from cancer in 2009, survived by eight children.
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