Mbalenhle Ntuli’s ‘Loving In Midrand’, a novel or screenplay
Finding love is hard enough, but relationships in South Africa seem to be particularly difficult to manage and navigate. Mbalenhlhle Ntuli’s Love In Midrand (2020) illustrates this against the backdrop of a typically South African come up story set between Soweto and Midrand.
In an interview with Midrand Reporter, Mbalenhle Ntuli describes Midrand as “multicultural and cosmopolitan”, with “so many misconceptions and social ideals around it that matched my characters’ journeys. It made sense to set the book there.”
Loving In Midrand is led by the character of Anele Gumede, a young black woman achieving professional success but jaded where romance is concerned. When her relationship falls apart, she moves back into her family home in Soweto, only to meet her next love interest, Mbuso. Unfortunately for her, Anele must content with Mbuso’s pregnant ex-girlfriend working to reunite her family. Add to this, Anele’s best friend Thando Kunene, who finds himself entangled in this web of intersexions.
In July 2021, via Instagram, Mbalenhle shared that a sequel to the series was in the works. While I’m curious to see where she takes the characters, I’m interested to see how book two reads in comparison to its predecessor.
As a novel, it’s not a difficult read because the story is boring. In fact, the story itself is riveting. Imagine a scenario where Anele, her new partner, his ex-girlfriend/baby mama, and her best friend, Thando, were real people fighting on a Twitter timeline. Their story would be the “topic of the day” and the banter would be pristine. The plot is as juicy and dramatic as a Tshedza Pictures series, but the writing is wordy without enough consideration to grammar, making the reading experience a bit uncomfortable.
In fairness, when you stretch your imagination, Loving In Midrand reads smoothly as a screenplay. For this reason, it’s my opinion that it be considered the next big print-to-screen series. We’ve seen the reception of Showmax’s The Wife series, criticism and all; Loving In Midrand would blow viewers away if casted and produced well.
