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Breyten Breytenbach. The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution: Essays on Africa. New York / Cape Town. Harcourt Brace / Human & Rousseau. 1996. xii + 170 pages. $22/R59.95. ISBN 0-15-10016S5/0-7981-3502-6.
The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution (the title's allusion to the Brecht-Celan poetic exchange is unavoidable) is so variable in style, tone, and content as to make summing it up more or less impossible. Included are twenty-one pieces dated between 1987 and 1994, what Breytenbach himself describes as "fragmented thoughts and images," a grab bag of letters, oratory, semifiction, surrealism, writing on writing, political haranguing, selfreflection, and not a few speeches to various international audiences.
It is a heterogeneous mix-"We slide effortlessly from reality to dream, from fact to fiction"-but that's Breytenbach's style, a writer who sees himself as "a `mule,' a passeur, a contrebandier, a smuggler, a raider prodding other people's scabs with...