Sample of literary figures
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Kafa Iqbal
Female
She was born in Jordan, which her skin hints at: she always seems to have a suntan, according to author Ingar Johnsrud. But Kafa Iqbal works for the Norwegian security service as an expert on religious terrorists when she is introduced to the readers – however, she soon switches to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Oslo Police. She is beautiful, slim, with dark, shoulder-length hair with a parting in the middle. She is also good at karate – and single.
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Thursday Next
Female
She is called Thursday Next, and is an agent for a state organisation in an absurd, parallel world (i.e. parallel to our own) that is imbued with literary features. She is newly married – we get to know that her husband Landen Parke-Laine drowned when he was three years old – and has a son Friday. Her mother is called Wednesday. Jasper Fforde has written a suite of very different fantasy crime novels about Thursday Next and her world.
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Charlie Chan
Male
Charlie Chan is a Chinese police inspector who works in Honolulu where he lives with his large family. The friendly, polite and calm Chan solves tricky cases in six whodunits by the American author Earl Derr Biggers. Chan is also the protagonist in a couple of dozen films that together with the books have made him a classic character.
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Tiny (Thobela) Mpayipheli
Male
South African warrior from the Xhosa tribe, renowned freedom-fighter – former ANC soldier – but also a Stasi agent and assassin for the KGB. He is the son of a peaceful pastor, and according to author Deon Meyer is a giant of a man with very dark skin and dazzlingly white teeth. Thobela ‘Tiny’ Mpayipheli is a skilled rugby player and for a while lives together with Miriam Nzululwazi, whose death hits him hard.