Unimportance (Paperback)

"I think people who take the awarded status of importance with grace first have to accept that they are important. You have to be very conceited to think that of yourself. If I should accept that I am in some way important, I should also accept that there are others who aren't. How do I live with myself with that sort of rubbish in my head? Do you know what I wish for? "What?" "To be good and unimportant." There was silence. "So I have made my decision. I am going home. By the end of today I will be free and unimportant." In 12 hours, your life could change forever, as Zizi discovers. On the night preceding his Student Representative Council presidential manifesto, and not for the first time, Zizi physically abuses his cheating girlfriend, Pamodi. But Pamodi flees. During a night that turns out to be the longest in Zizi's memory, instead of writing the manifesto speech, the reader follows the anxiety-stricken politician in his race against time and cover of the night, as he searches the campus for his missing girlfriend. While Zizi is haunted by the fear that Pamodi might expose him for what he really is, forever damaging his pristine image as the favourite presidential candidate, Pamodi evades detection, and is nowhere to be found. In the morning, the speech he delivers is not anything anyone could have expected from an SRC star: it is a litany of confessions for his questionable integrity and violence. As Zizi's words fade, and a sense of shock lingers in the air, he is faced with the reality of his actions; as they realise that they may vote a highly flawed man into office, how will these students vote? What will it mean, either way?