The Dertigers, or "writers of the thirties," are a group of Afrikaans-language South African poets who achieved new heights of eloquence in the young language's early decades of the 20th century.
The Dertigers strove to write a more emotionally intense, soul-baring poetry than their predecessors.
They eschewed gentlemanliness and bourgeois convention in order to produce a more honest and intimate poetry.
A further aim of the Dertigers was the effort to achieve a literary greatness that would make its mark in world literature.
In an attempt to express their humanity to the fullest, the poetry of the Dertigers has a confessional quality in which the poet seems to be overheard in the midst of a prayer or confession.