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• Why South Africa put its leading Afrikaans poet on trial

  One of the most important political trials to take place in South Africa for some time began on Friday when Mr. Breyten Breytenbach, the avant-garde Afrikaans poet and writer, appeared in Pretoria's palace of justice on charges of terrorism and furthering the aims of communism - both capital offences. He has pleaded guilty to some of the charges and the trial is expected to end this week. Mr Breytenbach, who is arguably the greatest living Afrikaans writer and whose works are required reading in most South African universities, faces 14 main allegations by the state. Chief among them is that he planned to set up an illegal organization known as "Atlas" or "Okhela," whose aim, according to the 18 page charge sheet, was to hand over power to Black Africans or set up a "Communist" society. [Article continues with an exploration of unrest and political arrests in South Africa.]
• Violence Hits Central Johannesburg after Execution of Moloise

  International outrage and violent demonstrations in the centre of Johannesburg followed the execution yesterday in Pretoria of Benjamin Moloise, a black South African poet. The execution - carried out in spite of pleas from around the world for clemency - prompted an angry response from Commonwealth heads of government, meeting in Nassau. Efforts are under way there to draw up a joint policy aimed to end apartheid in South Africa. [Article continues to describe Margaret Thatcher's involvement, and the meeting of the Commonwealth leaders/how they plan to work to end apartheid.]
• The Times Diary: Speak up about Soyinka

  Full Text: "It is now almost a year since Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright who was arrested by the Nigerian Government after he visited Biafra, was seen alive; and in spite of rumours that he had been killed or was seriously ill, General Gowon's regime has remained silent on his fate. Now Ama Ata Aidoo, a Ghanaian playwright, has written to General Gowon asking him to break the silence. Miss Aidoo, who decided to write the letter because she felt an official explanation was needed, met Soyinka some time ago. 'I don't know whether he will answer the letter or whether he will even get it,' she says. She has addressed her letter through the Nigerian High Commission in London. 'But I felt it should be written. People should not be allowed to forget Wole Soyinka's disappearance.' If General Gowon is worried about federal Nigeria's reputation for justice, he would do well to clear up this serious matter."
• The arrest of Ken Saro-Wiwa

  [Excerpt]: "At three o'clock on the afternoon of June 21, the President of the Nigerian Association of Writers, Ken Saro-Wiwa, was arrested in Port Harcourt, and has been held incommunicado ever since. He had long been expecting such a move against him. He had also long had doubts about the value of literature as a vocation in a social and political situation as critical as Nigeria's. For the past two years, he had devoted himself to promoting the interests of the Ogoni people, the ethnic group to which he belongs... Born in 1941, he attended Umuahia Government College, the school from which many eminent Nigerian writers--Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Christopher Okigbo among others-- graduated...."
• Soyinka says Nigerian gaol was 'no picnic'

  Mr. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright, poet, and novelist, returned to London yesterday after an absence of three years, two of which he spent in solitary confinement in a Nigerian gaol. He was never charged or tried, but his arrest in August 1967, followed a clandestine visit to what was Biafra during which he trid to persuade Colonel Ojukwu, the secessionist leader, to call off the war. The Federal Government however, asserted that Mr. Soyinka was a Biafran spy... Did he have any hard feelings? Had the iron entered his soul? That was a very large question he said, and smiled. But later he explained: "In order to function socially, normally, I have to seal the detention off completely for a while." ....
• Progress in Nigeria since civil war

  A 10-page Special Report on Nigeria will appear in The Times on Monday. Less than three years since the Biafran secession move collapsed the Nigerian civil war has been largely forgotten. Wole Soyinka, Africa's leading playwright, for whom it remains a vivid memory and who was imprisoned for nearly two years in solitary confinement, talks in the report revealingly about his country and his own future. Peter Hopkirk reports on the mood today among former Biafrans, and Cyprian Ekwensi, the novelist, writes on Africa's "rediscovery" of its cultural heritage.
• Pretoria judge delays hanging

  A three week stay of execution was granted last night to Benjamin Moloise, who was due to be hanged shortly after dawn today for the murder of a black security policeman... Moloise, a poet and upholsterer, aged 30, was convincted in November 1983 of the murder of Warrant Officer Phillip Selope, who was shot in an ambush in a township outside Pretoria a year earlier. The African National Congress has said it ordered the "execution" of the policeman for his part in the arrest of three ANC guerrillas who were later hanged in Pretoria, but that Moloise had no part in it.
• Power of the Pen in Exile: The Times Profile, Breyten Breytenbach

  This profile of Breyten Breytenbach describes his arrest in South Africa, his subsequent release, and his feelings about the South African regime and Afrikaans as a language more generally. "It was at the age of 36, the height of his literary acclaim, that South Africa's leading Afrikaans poet Breyten Breytenbach was imprisoned for seven years for clandestine activities against the apartheid system."
• Police hold playwright

  Mr. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright and head of the drama department at Ibadan University, has been detained by the federal Government for security reasons. He was arrested after being interrogated by the federal police. Doctors, including Soyinka's personal physician, are quoted as reporting that he was not manhandled by the Nigerian police, as alleged by some foreign newspapers. His wife was allowed to visit him last Friday. News of other writers in the former Eastern Nigeria is obscure, although it is known that the poet Christopher Okigbo, the representative of Cambridge University Press here, was killed in action as an army major. Mr. Soyinka was reported in The Times last week to have been released by the federal authorities after his detention on August 17. Reports reaching London said that he was seriously ill. His arrest on that occasion followed the publication in Nigeria of a letter in which he urged the federal Government to call a truce on hostilities with the secessionist Eastern Region. Mr. Soyinka, who was educated at Leeds University, is the best-known poet, playwright, and novelist in Nigeria. Among his plays performed in Britain are, The Road, The Trials of Brother Jero, and The Lion and the Jewel.
• Poet tells court of 'walled pit' in prison

  Breyten Breytenbach, the award-winning Afrikaans poet, described today how he began to "doubt my sanity" in the total isolation of the "walled pit" of his maximum security cell in Pretoria Central Prison. He was giving evidence for the second day running at the Pretoria Palace of Justice where he is on trial under the Terrorism Act and 17 other charges under the Riotous Assemblies and Prisons Acts. ...He is alleged to have tried to bribe a warden to let him escape. Mr Breytenbach was arrested early in 1975 after he had returned to South Africa after years of self-imposed exile in Paris to organize white activists into bringing about radical change in South Africa.
• Poet fights apartheid with his pen

  Mr Breyten Breytenbach, the Afrikaans poet, who arrived here on Sunday after being unexpectedly freed from prison in South Africa, said yesterday that he would not continue his political fight against apartheid. "I realize that I am not a politician," he said in an television interview. "But my whole life is against this type of situation, this type of ideology, in my private and professional life, as a poet and painter." Asking if he would continue his struggle through his poems and paintings, Mr Breytenbach said: "Yes, that will be my way." Mr Breytenbach, aged 44, was released on Thursday after serving seven years of a nine-year sentence on charges of plotting to overthrow the South African Government. At his trial he had admitted actively supporting the banned African National Congress. Looking fit and well, Mr Breytenbach said that he had seven years of poetry written in prison which he hoped to prepare for publication.
• No lies, no half-truths: a writer's cup of bitterness runs over

  The article writes on Wole Soyinka's new book, A Man Died, which was "based on his experiences in and out of prison during the civil war [in Nigeria], and which seems certain to cause General Gowon's Government grave embarassment."
• Nine years jail for Afrikaans poet

  Mr Breyten Breytenbach, the Afrikaans writer and poet, was today jailed for nine years by the Pretoria Supreme Court for taking part in "terroristic activities." ...Referring to the public apology which Mr Breytenbach made in court yesterday, the judge said he believed his testimony of regret was genuine. He also took into account that Mr Breytenbach's crime--the formation of an organization known as "Atlas" or "Okhela," whose aim was to overthrow the South African Government--never got beyond the discussion stage. However, violence could have resulted from the poet's actions, he said.
• News in Brief: Verdict date on Ghanaian poet

  The special court trying Dr. Kofi Awoonor, the Ghanaian poet, on charges of subversion is to give judgment on October 29, it was announced today. Dr. Awoonor has denied harbouring Brigadier Kojo Kattah, a former Army officer wanted in connexion with an abortive bid to overthrow General Ignatius Acheampong's Government last year. [Full text.]
• News in Brief: Nigerian freed

  Mr. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright, has been released from prison. A police source in Lagos disclosed that Mr. Soyinka was among 151 civilian detainees freed since October 1 under a limited amnesty.
• News in Brief: Nigerian Author on Hunger Strike

  Mr. Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian playwright and university lecturer, has gone on hunger strike after being held by the police at Ibadan for nearly a week, his lawyer said today. Mr. Soyinka, whose play The Road was staged at the recent Commonwealth Arts Festival in London, gave himself up last Tuesday. A warrant had been issued for his arrest, and the police said they wanted to question him about an illicit broadcast from Ibadan.
• New writers emerge after the 'big sleep'

  [Excerpt]: "Nigerian writing received its second wind in exile. Over the past decade, a new crop of Nigerian writers, celebrated in the diaspora, has resuscitated Nigeria's literary tradition. At home, it is the business of publishing, rather than the art of writing that is uppermost in many young writers' minds. Two decades of military rule coupled with the crippling effects of Nigeria's precipitous economic decline in teh [sic] 1980s and 1990s hs left the cultural landscape in ruins... Several UK publishers, including Oxford University Press, Evans, and, most notably, Heinemann, had set up shop in Ibadan, south-west Nigeria, and were able to tap the literary talents emerging from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria's foremost seat of learning. Magazines such as Black Orpheus and The Horn, showcased the work of such writers as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, Elechi Amadi, Ama Ata Aidoo and Ezekiel Mphalele, the South African writer. From the 1960s and well into the 1980s and 1990s, Heinemann's African Writers Series, distributed acorss the writers into international household names..."
• Mr. Wole Soyinka Acquitted

  Mr. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright and university lecturer, who has been standing trial at Ibadan on a charge of robbery with violence, was acquitted today. Mr. Justice Kayode Eso said there was a material conflict in the evidence of the prosecution witnesses. He was, however, convinced that the incident complained of in the charge really took place. Last October a gunman entered a Radio Nigeria studio in Ibadan, capital of western Nigeria, and attempted to replace the tape of a message from Chief Akintola, the Prime Minister, with his own. Mr. Soyinka said he was not in Ibadan at the time.
• Mr Hain aims for Springboks' Achilles heel

  [Excerpt]: "SUPPORT has snowballed beyond our wildest dreams,' says Peter hain, 19-year-old chairman of the Stop the Seventy Tour Committee formed recently to co-ordinate opposition, to next year's visit to Britain of the South African cricket team but now in the thick of the furore over the current Springbok rugger tour... It was through Denis Brutus, black South African president of SANROC (the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee) that Hain met 22-year old Hugh Geach, a Reading University student in Soil Science who is now honorary secretary of STST. Brutus is one of the few activists now hounding the Springboks with first-hand knowledge of het grim realities of Apartheid..."
• More arrested in South Africa

  Cape Town, Sept 16 -- At least four whites and an African have been detained under the Terrorism Act, in a new wave of arrests by South African security police. The latest arrests are connected with the detention some weeks ago of Breyten Breytenbach, an Afrikaner poet, James Polley, a Cape Town University lecturer, and a number of student leaders.
• Letters to the editor: Nigerian author

  From Mr. Ronald Bryden and others... Sir,-- It has been reported that Wole Soyinka, Nigeria's leading poet and playwright, has been imprisoned for signing a letter to a Nigerian newspaper proposing a truce in the present hostilities. We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned over Mr. Soyinka's predicament. To imprison him merely for suggesting a way out of the present unhappy situation can only do harm to Nigeria both at home and abroad. We therefore appeal to those with the power to do so to release him. Yours faithfully, Ronald Bryden, Andre Deutsch, Dennis Duerden, William Gaskill, Dan Jacobson, Joan Littlewood, Roland Penrose, Kenneth Tynan
• Letter to the Editor: Wole Soyinka

  Wole Soyinka, From Mr. Rex Collings. Sir--You published a report in the Diary some time ago (May 16) that I had received a letter from Wole Soyinka. This letter contained one very disturbing paragraph which at the specific request of the Nigerians who had sent the letter on to me I could not immediately make public. Now I can. This paragraph reads: "Physically not as good as may be expected. Serious eye complaint, no treatment. More than a year asking for treatment--ignored." Last year in a letter dated August 23 Chief Awolowo wrote to me "With reference to your letter dated July 11, 1968, I am reliably informed that Mr. Wole Soyika is alive and in good health." It must be obvious that if Wole's letter to me was accurate then Chief Awolowo was seriously misinformed. In the gaols of the world many political prisoners languish, some in appalling conditions denied all contact with the outsside world, others tortured, humiliated, and forgotten. Protests from outside sometimes make these conditions harsher and it is often difficult to know when to speak and when to keep silent. To plead for compassion and understanding, to ask that the political prisoners in Nigeria should be treated with humanity, is not to take sides in the horrible conflict that is tearing the country apart. A country is judged ultimately by the humanity that it shows in such instances and in its adherence to civilized standards. I am not interested nor are others in getting special treatment for Wole Soyinka. We are interested in trying to ensure that he and others like him should be treated with compassion....
• Jailed writer offered to work for police

  Breyten Breytenbach, the jailed Afrikaans writer, offered to infiltrate the South African Communist Party in exchange for his early release from prison, according to a letter produced during his trial... Mr. Breytenbach, already serving a nine-year prison sentence, is facing 17 charges under the Terrorism, Riotous Assemblies and Prisons Acts. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
• Jailed poet wins South African literary award

  Breyten Breytenbach, the jailed South African writer, has won a literary prize awarded by the pro-government press, for a book of poems written in prison. Mr Breytenbach was sentenced in 1975 to nine years' imprisonment for alleged subversion on behalf of the banned African National Congress. The prize was awarded by the Perskor group which owns Die Transvaler and other Afrikaans newspapers. It is for a collection of poems entitled Voetskrif (Footnote). The prize money of 2,000 rand has been handed over to the poet's brother.
• In search of a subject

  Sousa Jamba writes critical reviews of both Africa Talks Back, which contains interviews with Anglophone African authors, and The Ordeal of the African Writer, by Charles R. Larson. Of the first, Jamba writes, "Africa Talks Back... reflects the ambitions of a wide range of writers. Some of them, like the Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek, are long dead; others have gone into obscure retirement. Some, such as Chinua Achebe, Dennis Brutus, Kole Omotoso, Taban Lo Liyong and Njabulo Ndebele, are still active, thugh mainly in the academic world in the West or in South Africa... Today, the all-powerful Big Men who have dominated postcolonial Africa are slowly being forced out and institutions such as Makerere University are, very slowly, recovering their former glory..." Of the second, Jamba writes, "Charles R. Larson, a professor of literature at American University in Washington D.C. outlines some of the major obstacles facing the African writer. These are the parlous state of publishing on the continent, persecution from political authorities, and consequent exile."