by Thando Mgqolozana (Jacana, R150)
Thando Mgqolozana’s latest offering, Unimportance, is a deceptively easy book to read. Coming in at less than 200 pages, set against a university campus backdrop and narrated by its chief protagonist, Zizi, who has sights on being the most powerful political figure on campus, the book lays bare the anatomy of power and privilege.
Mgqolozana tells tales of rivalry between those who wield power and those who believe it is rightfully theirs. But you will have to pay careful attention, otherwise you might think it is just another great book.
At face value the storyline is basic. Zizi has been a less than honourable gentlemen towards his girlfriend. She ups and leaves him under the pretext of visiting a friend. All this happens in the middle of the night.
When she does not return, Zizi must make life and career defining decision over the 12 hours of the book.
His integrity will be tested over this period as he is forced to evaluate his own values and revisit episodes in his life that shaped them.
Mgqolozana, who in his previous work, A Man Who Is Not a Man, showed that he was not afraid of tackling issues of gender and particularly masculinity, tackles the same and more here.
It is this “more” that gives Unimportance its delightful deception.
Whether by intention or otherwise, Unimportance tells the story of modern South Africa where the lanes of political power, male sexual conquest, personal material gain fuse.
Though the backdrop is a university campus, Mgqolozana has created characters anyone who has witnessed the emergence of the political and economic elites of the post-apartheid era in every sphere of life can recognise.
It is a story of the vainglorious and self-important political types against the indifferent, bubble-gum chewing beneficiaries of their proximity to those in power.
It delivers more than the words and images on the pages.
It asks the reader to imagine the present day political and gender narrative without being didactic or preachy.
In fact, it employs understated humour.
At other times the reader must decide whether they want to hug or throttle the equally emotionally conflicted Zizi.
Mgqolozana even smuggles in the vexed question of leaders’ public testing for the HI virus.
And therein lies the beauty and the importance of the Unimportance.
The material involved in creating this story is such that Mgqolozana could have written an angry tirade against the abuse of state resources by the politically connected.
Or a commentary on the debauchery of youth.
He could just as easily have dedicated his very obvious talent and eye for detail and empathy for his subject, to decry the objectification and sexual exploitation of young women.
Instead, he wrote a book that one cannot put down.
Yet it makes one think deeply about the post-apartheid society and the emerging black political classes.