Breyten Breytenbach is a writer, painter, and activist of South African origin.

He lives on Gorée Island, Dakar, where he is the Executive Director of the Gorée Institute, a Pan-African Center for Democracy, Development and Culture in Africa, and for part of the year in New York where he teaches in the Creative Writing Program of NYU.

His most recent publications are Dog Heart, a travel memoir, and Lady One, a volume of poems. His recent one-person exhibitions are in La Maison Française (New York, 2003) and in Galerie Espace, Amsterdam, 2005.