Meet the Characters of A Novel in Real Time

The People Who Changed Everything

Every story begins with a person.

Not an event.
Not a place.
Not a conspiracy.

A person.

Someone you trust.

Someone you love.

Someone you think you know.

When I started writing A Novel in Real Time, I thought I was writing a story about a woman who falls in love. Somewhere between the first chapter and the last, it became a story about identity, memory, belonging and the dangerous things people do to protect the truth.

Before the book arrives, I thought I'd introduce you to some of the people you'll meet along the way.

Some of them are heroes.

Some of them are villains.

Most of them exist somewhere in between.

Zibuyile Ngcobo

The story begins with Zibuyile.

A writer. A dreamer. A woman trying to build a life outside of her family’s status.

She is curious, stubborn and often trusts her heart before she trusts evidence. When violence forces her into hiding, she finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew about the people around her.

Including herself.

The deeper she digs, the more she discovers that some stories don't begin when we are born.

Sometimes they begin generations before us.

Luthando Madlala

Every great love story comes with a complication.

Luthando is that complication.

Charismatic. Intelligent. Protective.

The kind of man who remembers how you take your coffee and notices when you've had a difficult day.

The kind of man who makes you feel safe.

The problem is that Luthando has spent years hiding who he really is.

And when the truth starts to surface, Zibuyile is forced to ask a question no one ever wants to ask the person they love:

Who are you, really?

Mthetho Ngcobo

Every family has a keeper of stories.

In the Ngcobo family, that person is Mthetho.

A father.
A protector.
A man carrying more history than he is willing to share.

He understands the danger long before anyone else does, but some truths are so heavy that protecting the people you love can sometimes mean lying to them.

Whether that choice was right or wrong is something readers will have to decide for themselves.

Nonjabulo Khumalo

Every mystery needs someone willing to ask uncomfortable questions.

Nonjabulo is fiercely loyal, wonderfully opinionated and entirely unwilling to let her best friend disappear without a trace.

She represents home.

The version of life that existed before everything changed.

And sometimes the people who love us most become the people willing to fight hardest for the truth.

Bhekizizwe Dlamini

Every story needs a hunter.

The kind of man who walks into a room and changes its temperature.

Bhekizizwe is relentless.

Focused.

Dangerous.

He believes he is protecting the world from something catastrophic.

The frightening thing is that he might actually believe he's the hero.

Ayanda Mthethwa

Official records say Ayanda is dead.

The story disagrees.

Her photograph becomes the first crack in reality and the first sign that something far bigger is happening beneath the surface.

Some ghosts haunt houses.

Others haunt entire histories.

The People Behind The Curtain

As the story unfolds, readers will meet a collection of individuals whose influence stretches across decades.

Dr Gabriel Ndlovu.
Nomusa van Wyk.
Professor Elias Molefe.
Sipho Mbatha.
Miriam Jacobs.

They are connected by a single question:

What if you could erase someone without killing them?

Not just from society.

From history itself.

The Seventh Founder

And then there is Thukani Ngcobo.

A name whispered more than spoken.

A person believed to be dead.

A mystery that sits at the heart of everything.

Some stories end with answers.

This one begins with a question.

Who was Thukani Ngcobo?

And why does everyone seem so afraid of the answer?

Before The Book Arrives

The characters in A Novel in Real Time are connected by three things:

Identity.
Love.
Secrets.

Some are searching for the truth.

Some are running from it.

And some have spent their entire lives trying to bury it.

The question isn't whether the truth will surface.

The question is what happens when it does.

A Novel in Real Time: The Neitherlands is coming soon.

Until then, keep asking questions.

Especially when the answers seem obvious.