Various (Crowe, Thomas Rain; Schwartz, Stephen, et al.)

Three Original Flyers: Earth News (November 20, 1975) With: Human Rights in South Africa: An Emergency Bulletin (June 1, 1977) with: Bulletin of the Committee on the Breytenbach Case No. 5 (October 30, 1977)

San Francisco, CA: Committee on the Breytenbach Case, 1977. First Printings. Single Sheets. "It was actually Stephen Schwartz who was first to call our attention to Breytenbach’s case. He, being the vocal presence that he was, got fired up about the injustices being brought to bear on Breytenbach and had actually written up a flyer of his own that he was distributing around North Beach to everyone. That flyer eventually made its way into Beatitude as an insert. As I say, due mainly to Hirschman and Ferlinghetti’s interest in international news and literature, the rest of us got involved. Again, it was a case of a fellow poet who was being mistreated by his government for simply speaking out against the injustices of the Apartheid system in South Africa…There were some of us who were more political than others, so we persisted in our efforts on behalf of the various causes we were drawn to. And as the years went by, more and more sympathetic poets and artists joined us in our activist events and lent their support, if not their voices, to our various protests” (The Thomas Rain Crowe Archive, p. 14). As Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949), the co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance alludes to in the excerpt quoted above, the political and activistic involvement of the Second San Francisco Renaissance encompassed several interests and causes. One among these was South African apartheid, and particularly the case of the late Breyten Breytenbach (1939-2024). Breytenbach, like the great Dennis Brutus (1924-2009) was wrongfully imprisoned by the apartheid government (as were many South African poets of note, skin tone not withstanding). These leaflets were compiled and printed by San Francisco’s “Committee on the Breytenbach Case” — which, we surmise was ran by Stephen Schwartz, whom Crowe mentions in association with the Breytenbach case in the excerpt qtd. above. As Thomas also mentions, one of these leaflets was included as an insert in an issue of the then-recently revitalized Beatitude magazine — though We at TMB aren’t sure which issue, specifically. That said, we offer in concert three of these leaflets, and are confident that their pairing will prove both useful & alluring to collectors & libraries inclusive of human rights-focused literary activism. From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe, the legendary American poet and co-authorial founder of the Baby Beat Generation/Second San Francisco Renaissance. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book, Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (Item No. 3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (Item No. 1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. Letter-format leaflet-posting[s] on single sheet, with all but one (“Number 5, October 1977”) printed only on rectos: the first-and-only printings of these Breytenbach-based productions. All leaflets in Fine-Very Fine condition with only slight-to-moderate edge-wear, age-toning & some light bumping at recto & verso sides; lastly, some since-flattened creasing — mostly where initially folded (as issued); otherwise, clean. Very Fine. [Item #7402]

Price: $75.00