CHOOSING TO BE FREE, the life story of Rick Turner

251 pp., illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2013

A biography of South African academic philosopher Rick Turner, shot through the window of his Durban home by an unknown gunman in 1978.

A supporter of the emerging black trade union movement and the Black Consciousness Movement, Rick Turner taught political science at the University of Natal in the 1970s. In 1973 he published the book, "The Eye of the Needle, towards participatory democracy in South Africa". The following year he was banned for five years by the South African authorities. In 1976 he was awarded a Humboldt Fellowship by Heidelberg University but was refused permission to travel to Germany. His killers have never been identified.

"The continuing relevance of the ideas of Rick Turner and the challenge they pose need to be brought into the present, and Billy Keniston has made a valuable contribution through this book. Innovatively and with atmosphere, he recalls a very important period in the creation of a democratic South Africa." Professor Gerhard Maré