When the deadly and elusive Ahmed ibn Facquard bombs the World Peace Summit at the Sandton Hilton Hotels Complex in Johannesburg, South Africa, the world cries for blood. Led by a reeling United States, calls are made for decisive action to be taken apprehending the terrorist who for all appearances is being protected by his home country. In a chilling race against time, two unlikely agents are brought in by their respective countries to track down and eliminate the threat “by any means necessary.” The hunt begins in the ruins of the demolished building and in the backstreets of a lowly oil-drilling settlement in Nigeria, and culminates in a high-stakes, no-holds-barred showdown in a mansion On Home Soil in one of Nigeria’s bustling conurbations in which the two agents are pitted against each other and against a terrorist whose origins conceal a deadly secret.

Meet tall and handsome, slightly tanned Alpha Dominic Thunders, Alpha of the notorious and merciless Red Moon pack, his features could make the Greek gods jealous even though it is believed that he was hand crafted by them. His broad muscular body with his perfect bulging muscles and well chiseled and could make you drool; one look from him with those damn beautiful brown eyes could make girls wet and the men in worlds known mafia's bow down to respect him, they spoke the words of authority and had a mischievous look. A true born Alpha who leads by example. Admired and adored by his pack; he has protected them by putting his life on the line, a story for much later; a storm brewing and it is coming for the Red Moon Pack. His right hook is known to put the toughest of men out in one swing. His beast needs to be tamed and the storm in his soul needs to be calmed. Now! Meet Athena Breeze, her stunning body and those sexy curves; she is half heaven and half hell and believe me you do not want to be on the half that is hell. Long black waist length hair and dark brown eyes, her smile could either make your heart melt and her fair skin so soft and smooth, not a single blemish. The women warriors of the first world would be in admiration of her fighting skills. Stubborn and strong minded like any other female Alpha who is being groomed to take the reins of Ocean Moon. She has a heart full of love; don't forget the sass. She needs to be grounded. Could it be coincidence that these two fated mates meet a couple of days later?

Keorapetse Kgositsile, South Africa’s second poet laureate, was a political activist, teacher, and poet. He lived, wrote, and taught in the United States for a significant part of his life and collaborated with many influential and highly regarded writers, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Plumpp, Dudley Randall, and George Kent. This comprehensive collection of Kgositsile’s new and collected works spans almost fifty years. During his lifetime, Kgositsile dedicated the majority of his poems to people or movements, documenting the struggle against racism, Western imperialism, and racial capitalism, and celebrating human creativity, particularly music, as an inherent and essential aspect of the global liberation struggle. This collection demonstrates the commitment to equality, justice, and egalitarianism fostered by cultural workers within the mass liberation movement. As the introduction notes, Kgositsile had an “undisputed ability to honor the truth in all its complexity, with a musicality that draws on the repository of memory and history, rebuilt through the rhythms and cadences of jazz.” Addressing themes of Black solidarity, displacement, and anticolonialism, Kgositsile’s prose is fiery, witty, and filled with conviction. This collection showcases a voice that wanted to change the world—and did.

In The Politics of Vibration Marcus Boon explores music as a material practice of vibration. Focusing on the work of three contemporary musicians—Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, Swedish drone composer and philosopher Catherine Christer Hennix, and Houston-based hip-hop musician DJ Screw—Boon outlines how music constructs a vibrational space of individual and collective transformation. Contributing to a new interdisciplinary field of vibration studies, he understands vibration as a mathematical and a physical concept, as a religious or ontological force, and as a psychological determinant of subjectivity. Boon contends that music, as a shaping of vibration, needs to be recognized as a cosmopolitical practice—in the sense introduced by Isabelle Stengers—in which what music is within a society depends on what kinds of access to vibration are permitted, and to whom. This politics of vibration constitutes the hidden ontology of contemporary music because the organization of vibration shapes individual music scenes as well as the ethical choices that participants in these scenes make about how they want to live in the world.

South Africans often are deeply polarised in our perspectives of the present and the past. Our ‘ways of seeing’ are fraught with division, and we fail to understand the complexities when we do not see what lies beneath the surface. There is no denying that the Jacob Zuma presidency took a significant toll on South Africa, exacerbating tensions and exposing the deep fractures that already exist in our society along the lines of race, class and even ethnicity. The Zuma years were marked by cases of corruption and state capture, unprecedented in their brazenness, and increased social protests – many of which were accompanied by violence – aggressive public discourse, lack of respect for reason and an often disturbing resistance to meaningful engagement. Importantly, those years also placed enormous pressure on our democratic institutions, many of which still bear the scars, and challenged the sovereignty of the Constitution itself. As an analyst and governance specialist at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) for twelve years, February has had a unique perch. Turning and turning is a snapshot of her IDASA years and the issues tackled, which included work on the arms deal and its corrosive impact on democratic institutions, IDASA’s party-funding campaign, which February helped lead, as well as work on accountability and transparency. Combining analytical insight with personal observations and experience, February highlights the complex process of building a strong democratic society, and the difficulties of living in a constitutional democracy marked by soaring levels of inequality. There is a need to reflect on and learn from the country’s democratic journey if citizens are to shape our democracy effectively and to fulfill the promise of the Constitution for all South Africans.