Breyten Breytenbach is a poet, playwright, novelist, autobiographer and painter. His influence on Afrikaans literature has been profound, especially through his autobiographical work. His most recent selected poems in English, published under the title Judas Eye (Faber), appeared in 1988. He divides his time between Paris, Spain and a small town in South Africa.

Pretoria - Quand la pluie pend du ciel when a civil service rain out of the blue slants against the summer afternoon sinking like coachtracks, like matches that flutter and then are slain and smoulder – then detectives bend over the briefcases to stow their service revolvers and lunchtins (tomorrow the crumbs are bloody) switch off the palm fans go stand by a window, attentively look and say: "it's raining" and up here in the gaol there is a square earth ventilated between grey and high walls with the hard bitter scent of something that's burning ( or is it a burning that is being doused? ) a seagull shrieks its scorched feet and bandiete waiting for it to blow at the gratings sniff the passages of air and say: "it's raining?" only later the flowers begin to smoke (translated from Afrikaans by John Mateer)