ABSTRACT

The ambiguity and duality surrounding the ‘Cape coloured’ reach a peak with the group of Afrikaner literary iconoclasts who pursue their cultural revolution under the nomenclature, Die Sestigers. The ‘Sestigers’, one gathers, are writers who open the portals of Afrikanerdom by touching upon such issues as the oppression of the blacks and the hypocrisy of Afrikanerdom in respect of sex and religion. Understandably, quite a few of the Afrikaner writers concentrated on the ‘coloured’ as part of the Afrikaans-speaking community. The concern is rather with Breytenbach the Afrikaner prodigal son and his impact on Afrikaner culture as a ‘Sestiger’. Afrikaner religious, cultural and political leaders were particularly upset by the content and the tenor of the novel. The book gained the distinction of being the first novel by an Afrikaner writer in Afrikaans ever to be banned. Lodewijcksz Willem and his family stand for the traditional ideas and values in Afrikanerdom, enshrined in the trinity of Language, God and People.