Rick Turner’s Politics as the Art of the Impossible. (Supplied)

BOOK:Rick Turner’s Politics as the Art of the Impossible, edited by Michael Onyebuchi Eze, Lawrence Hamilton, Laurence Piper and Gideon van Riet (Wits University Press)

News24’s Book of the Month for August,Rick Turner’s Politics as the Art of the Impossible,highlights the political philosophy of the writer and activist who was murdered in 1978. What could his work on liberation say to South Africa today? Does the work of this activist and writer, who was assassinated in 1978, have any relevance to SA now? Rick Turner’s Politics as the Art of the Impossible, edited by Michael Onyebuchi Eze, Lawrence Hamilton, Laurence Piper and Gideon van Riet, responds to Turner’s challenge to think in a utopian way if political philosophy is to do something concrete in the world today.

Essays in this volume include engagements with Turner’s work on race relations, his relationship with Steve Biko, his views on religion, education and gender oppression, poverty and inequality, and his participatory model of democracy.

The editors write: “Turner inspires us not to be afraid but to be courageous; to start with imagining a better world from where we are with what we have, and then to act to get there, bearing in mind we might need to alter ourselves along the way.”

In these edited highlights from the launch of the book, co-editor Lawrence Hamilton leads the discussion with contributors Tendayi Sithole, Daryl Glaser and Christine Hobden.

Read an extract from Rick Turner’s Politics as the Art of the Impossible here.