One of the oldest examples of written Cape Dutch is the poem Lied ter eere van de Swellendamsche en diverse andere helden bij de bloedige actie aan Muizenberg in dato 7 August 1795 (Song in Honour of the Swellendam and various others Heroes at the Bloody Action at Muizenberg)[3] while the earliest Afrikaans publications are generally believed to be Zamenspraak tusschen Klaas Waarzegger en Jan Twyfelaar (Conversations between Klaas Waarzegger and Jan Twyfelaar) by L.H.
Sir Alfred Milner, the Royal Governor of the newly formed Union of South Africa, launched an effort to use both the government and the educational system to force the Afrikaners and Coloured people to switch to English.
Eugène Marais, a morphine addicted poet, scientist, and former journalist whose newspaper criticisms of President Paul Kruger had made him a highly unpopular figure in the Republic of Transvaal, switched from writing in English and Dutch to in Afrikaans during the era that followed the British defeat of the Boer Commandos.
[8] However, as extreme Afrikaner nationalists took control of the political process in the 1920s and the decades that followed, poets and authors writing in Afrikaans became some of the most vocal opponents of both the ruling National Party and its White Supremacist policy of Apartheid.
Inspired, according to Jack Cope, by Krige's upbringing within Afrikaner Calvinism and its polemics against an allegedly corrupt Pre-Reformation Church, Lied van die fascistiese bomwerpers also leveled savage attacks against Roman Catholicism.
Krige responded by asking whether South African Catholics approved of the destruction of what he considered the lawful Spanish Government or in the ongoing White Terror by the Nationalist side.
[12] According to Jack Cope, Krige's linguistic and literary talent combined with his passion for modern French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese literature made him the principal translator from Romance languages into Afrikaans during the 20th century.
[14] Krige's electrifying encounter with Latin American poetry whilst stationed with the South African Army in Cairo during World War II also led him to translate the poetry of Jacinto Fombona-Pachano, Jose Ramon Heredia, Vicente Huidobro, Jorge Carrera Andrade, Nicolas Guillen, Cesar Vallejo, Jorge de Lima and Manuel Bandeira into Afrikaans from both Spanish and Portuguese.
[17] During the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, Uys Krige served as a mentor and father figure to Cape Town's racially mixed literary bohemia, which gathered in the beach-side suburb of Clifton.
Described by her contemporary Joan Hambidge as "the Pablo Neruda of Afrikaans", Krog published her first book of verse, Dogter van Jefta (Daughter of Jephta) at the age of seventeen.
Writing in 1971, novelist André Brink alleged, "essentially more than ninety-percent of the Afrikaans writers are more or less pro-establishment, pro-system, pro-government", and called this, "a very simple, if disgusting fact.
While a number of writers in Afrikaans were, "on the right wing", and were even thought to be members of the secret society known as the Broederbond, others were what was often termed, "cultural nationalists"; men and women who were firmly opposed to racial discrimination, but were terrified to, "cut the umbilical cord and face up to the loneliness of full creative independence."
Cope also said that there were many Afrikaans, "writers of genuine insight who firmly believe themselves to be good patriots and conformers (Nationalists and Calvinists) but whose work turn on its head their own system of comfortable assumptions".
According to André Brink, Breytenbach was retried in June 1977 on fanciful charges that among other things, he had planned a submarine attack by the Soviet Navy on the prison at Robben Island through the conspiratorial "Okhela Organisation."
Inspired by François Villon's Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis, Breytenbach compared Afrikaner political dissident poets Peter Blum, Ingrid Jonker, and himself to unfaithful lovers, who had betrayed Afrikaans poetry by taking leave of it.
[22] In a 1978 talk before the students at the University of Stellenbosch, novelist Jan Rabie said, "I cannot speak for the sum of thinking people, I only can say that I wonder if there remains a writer in the country who still has any respect for our government's apartheid policy.
[24] At the same time, however, the Afrikaans language poets, writers, and intellectuals who were part of the opposition to National Party rule have gained worldwide attention and admiration.
In particular, Afrikaans poet Ingrid Jonker was singled out for praise by Nelson Mandela, who recited an English translation of one of her poems aloud during his first address to the South African Parliament as president in 1994.
[25] Notable authors writing or who wrote in Afrikaans include André Brink and Breyten Breytenbach, Reza de Wet, Etienne Leroux, Jan Rabie, Ingrid Jonker, Adam Small, Bartho Smit, and Chris Barnard.