Multitudes, the new novel from Mphuthumi Ntabeni, is out now from Kwela Books!
Multitudes
Mphuthumi Ntabeni
Kwela Books, 2026
When Phila, a writer adrift, enters fatherhood, he does not arrive alone. He carries ancestors, lovers, ghosts of former selves, and the unresolved burdens of a country still wrestling with its past.
Anchored by his partner, Kyuri, and the slow return of his daughters, he must rebuild a life from grief. Multitudes is a deeply humane novel about memory, loss, history, and the fragile, necessary work of repair.
About the book
I sip on the wine and taste fear in its warmth. I feel the movements of ancestral imidudo, intlombe, within me, trying to drive the darkness back . . .
Phila Maseti is estranged from his daughters by his late Scottish wife and is adrift. He accepts a commission to write the biography of the journalist Bloke Modisane, but as he pieces together the restless life of this great literary voice, he finds that it mirrors his own unravelling.
He moves between Cape Town and Europe, tracing the footsteps of his dispossessed peoples who once sought justice in a language not their own. In his journey from past to present, Phila carries ancestors, ghosts of former selves and the grief of his wife’s death. The slow return of his daughters also brings the challenge of teaching them about culture and identity in a country still wrestling with its own history.
Phila is steadied only by his new partner, Kyuri—whose own spiritual inheritance has been shaped by Asian migrations, unhealthy silences, and colonial history. Together, they attempt to build a life attentive to memory without becoming imprisoned by it.
