Memory of Birds in Time of Revolution: Essays

This miscellany of recent essays and lectures by Afrikaner renegade Breytenbach does not have the sustained brilliance of such soul-and nation-searching memoirs as Return to Paradise, but his musings about art and politics express doubt, responsibility and wonder. He reminds a European audience how apartheid ``flows from our shared history.'' Refusing to play the victimized exile, he claims he is through with politics; however, he also includes respectfully critical ``open letters'' to Nelson Mandela (in 1991 and 1994) and a lecture in which he warned the new government about its hegemonic bent. ``Exile has brought it home to me that I'm African,'' Breytenbach declares, and his patriotism is shaped by anguish and a sense of urgency regarding a world that ignores his homeland. A devolutionist democrat in politics and an individualist in culture, even when fanciful or obscure, he writes in passionate, poetic language. Author tour. (Feb.)