The Sestigers (Sixtiers), also known as the Beweging van Sestig (the movement of sixty), were a group of influential resistant

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

-language writers in the 1960s started by André Brink and

Breyten Breytenbach Breyten Breytenbach (; born 16 September 1939) is a South African writer, poet and painter known for his opposition to apartheid, and consequent imprisonment by the South African government. He is informally considered as the national poet lau ...

, which also included Reza de Wet,

Etienne Leroux Etienne Leroux (13 June 1922 – 30 December 1989) was an Afrikaans writer and a member of the South African Sestigers literary movement. Early life and career Etienne Leroux was born in Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape on 13 June 1922 as Stepha ...

Jan Rabie Jan Sebastian Rabie (14 November 1920 - 15 November 2001) was an Afrikaans writer of short stories, novels and other literary works. He was born in George, and was the writer of twenty-one works. He was included under the Sestigers The Sestigers ...

Ingrid Jonker Ingrid may refer to: * Ingrid (given name) * Ingrid (record label), and artist collective * Ingrid Burley, rapper known mononymously as Ingrid * Tropical Storm Ingrid, various cyclones * 1026 Ingrid, an asteroid * InGrid, the grid computing project ...

Adam Small Adam Small (21 December 1936 – 25 June 2016) was a South African writer who was involved in the Black Consciousness Movement and other activism. He was noted as a Coloured writer who wrote works in Afrikaans that dealt with racial discriminatio ...

Bartho Smit Bartho Smit (15 July 1924 – 31 December 1986) was a South African writer, poet, dramatist and director. He was a member of the Sestigers, a group of influential Afrikaans writers of the 1960s. He wrote ''Moeder Hanna'' ("Mother Hanna") in 1959 ...

Chris Barnard Christiaan Neethling Barnard (8 November 1922 – 2 September 2001) was a South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant operation. On 3 December 1967, Barnard transplanted the heart of accident-v ...

Hennie Aucamp Hennie Aucamp (20 January 1934 – 20 March 2014) was a South African Afrikaans poet, short story writer, cabaretist and academic. He grew up on a farm in the Stormberg highlands and matriculated at Jamestown, Eastern Cape before continuing his ...

, Dolf van Niekerk,

Abraham H. de Vries Abraham Hermanus de Vries (born 9 February 1937) is an Afrikaans short story writer, considered one of the most respected and beloved in Afrikaans language literature in the Sestigers. Early life and career De Vries was born in Ladismith in the ...

and

Elsa Joubert Elsabé Antoinette Murray Joubert OIS (19 October 1922 – 14 June 2020) was a Sestigers Afrikaans-language writer. She rose to prominence with her novel '' Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena'' (The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena), which was tra ...

. These writers studied abroad (mainly in Paris) and under the widespread influence of

Existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

attempted to face the innocent writing of the dominant literature. Thus they aimed at a revolutionary literature (

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

mainly) by breaking with the past, and introducing the European innovations, to tackle the political, social and sexual problems of the society and eventually led to a phenomenal growth in the

art in later decades. Judy H. Gardner calls the Sestigers' literature "literature in exile in its own country". The Sestigers wished to elevate Afrikaans and confront the

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

state.

References

Afrikaans literature 20th-century South African literature Afrikaner anti-apartheid activists {{lit-mov-stub

See also

References