Now, here, squeezed between the success and disappointments of the past year and the promises of the new one, everything—all of it—is already a memory, a stage for ephemeral presence. This is a peculiar moment of transition in which we can feel the desperate pinch of time.
At our lowest, when we are alone and wrapped in confinement, we muse over our mistakes, carefully labelling them: shame, guilt, and loathing. But even that comes to an end too since writing is a kind of translation—imperfect as it often is—and the rules of instruction and the methods of creation remain the same: chop wood and carry water.
Dreams encounter thoughts, thoughts call to desire, desire speaks to longing, longing summons action, and action gathers effort. The work is the work. The work needs to be done. So the work must be done.
Whether we find ourselves off the coast of Sicily en route to Gaza with a storm on the horizon, or Saivonga’s seemingly endless waters, islands, sandy beaches, and nostalgic sunsets, or on the stoep wondering how much a sunset costs, we turn our gaze toward that sweet faraway place where dreams are made and make our offerings of tomorrow.
This is Doek!—a literary magazine from Namibia.
Rémy Ngamije is an award-winning Rwandan-born Namibian author, editor, publisher, photographer, literary educator, and entrepreneur.
His books include The Eternal Audience Of One—which was honoured with a Special Mention at the inaugural Grand Prix Panafricain De Litterature and won the inaugural African Literary Award from the Museum of the African Diaspora—and Only Stars Know The Meaning Of Space, his collection of award-winning fiction.
In 2021 he won the Africa Regional Prize of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021 and 2020. He was longlisted and shortlisted for the 2020 and 2021 Afritondo Short Story Prizes respectively. In 2019 he was shortlisted for Best Original Fiction by Stack Magazines.
Rémy is the founder and chairperson of Doek, an independent arts organisation in Namibia supporting the literary arts and the editor-in-chief of Doek! Literary Magazine, the country’s first and only literary magazine. He is also the founder and director of several literary initiatives such as the Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards, the Doek Literary Festival, and the Doek Anthology.
His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in The Johannesburg Review of Books, Lolwe, American Chordata, LitHub, Granta, One Story, and Best American Essays 2024 among many others.