He died in Paris aged 85, his daughter told AFP.
Breyten Breytenbach left South Africa in the early 1960s and settled in Paris.
He was involved in the struggle against the apartheid regime and was imprisoned in South Africa in the 1970s while in the country.
After seven years in prison, of which two in solitary confinement, he was released in 1982. He returned to France where he became a citizen.
Breyten Breytenbach wrote about 50 books during his lifetime, among them “True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist”.