"He will die in another way before he is dead". The violence of the prison system in "The Double Dying of an Ordinary Criminal" by Breyten Breytenbach

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the analysis of some of the major themes in the short story The Double Dying of an Ordinary Criminal, which provides one of the strongest examples of prison literature. The story under scrutiny is taken from the collection The Heinemann Book of South African Short Stories: from 1945 to the present, first published in 1994; however, it is intended to be read as a fragment of a novel from the collection Mouroir, written by Breytenbach while in prison. First, the article will explore Breytenbach’s political activism during South African Apartheid and his following exile and imprisonment. Then, it will present a short introduction to the South African prison literature genre. Then, Breytenbach’s short story The Double Dying of an Ordinary Criminal will be analysed, with special emphasis on the themes of the double and death, and Breytenbach’s indictment of prison conditions and the death sentence during Apartheid (1948-1991). Finally, the philosophical musings on death and mirrors in the second chapter of the story will be further explored, describing the role of writing and thinking about death.