Tomorrow, October 19, Chimurenga—a pan African literary & political magazine—releases The Chronic, a once-off edition of an imaginary newspaper for the week of May 18-24, 2008, a time when xenophobic violence tore through South Africa. According to a press release from Chimurenga, the October 19 release date is significant as well, “a historic day in South Africa that marks the banning of numerous Black Consciousness organisations and independent newspapers by the apartheid regime.” According to Chimurenga founding editor Ntone Edjabe, the newspaper issue seeks to “travel back in time to stage an intervention in the past so as to reimagine the present.”

The research and passion behind just the online samples from the issue are stunning. And the contents of the magazine are various, to say the least. The final 96-page multi-section broadsheet will feature: longform journalism by award-winning writers and journalists; in-depth investigations into xenophobia, border politics, the business of migration and ethnic economics; innovative coverage of sports, arts, health, technology and more; a stand-alone 56 page Chronic Life Magazine featuring photography, essays, guides, games, columns and more; a Chronic Book Review Magazine as a self-contained 96 page magazine with interviews, analysis and over 92 pages of reviews, plus new fiction and poetry; and (finally) an audio CD supplement “mixtape” composed, arranged and performed by musician and composer Neo Muyanga.

Here—as a taste—is a hyperlinked bit from the issue’s editorial:

Whose House Is This?

Why is North Korea celebrating the African renaissance?

Why are Kenyans running to work?

How would you dress to impress god?

Do you want to die here or at home?

Everyone who can, is building a wall.

Everyone who can, is outsourcing border control.

Everything is in the name of security.

Introducing South African Guilt tax.

Are we all perpetrators of crimes committed in the past?…