Here, between the old year and the new one, with time bleeding into darkness, there is a mere sliver of hours in which to reflect on the disappointments and rewards, near misses and square hits, or poisoned pawns and wrong moves of the past. All of them will soon be bygones. But they will continue to exert pressure on all of our tomorrows—sometimes gently, probably violently. After all, if we are doomed to reap what we have sown, the present times foreshadow a dark and potentially ruinous harvest.
Maybe this is the price of forgetting our ties to the land, that the sea, forests, and soil are not passive backdrops but active participants in shaping the rhythm of our collective existence. Perhaps what is to come will be the consequence of forgetting to be true to nature. You see, when you become a sleeper agent in your own life you start seeing things for what they are. You learn that there is a shame that dances to sympathy and bathes in pity—it gets drunk on its own nudity. And, sometimes hope is the rippling face that looks up to the sky when you stare into a clear stream.
Someone says, “I’ll tell you why I was late for church yesterday—I was thinking about the Congo, Sudan, and Gaza. “I know it is possible to drink one’s tears so as to not die from thirst.”
In such uncertain times, we are called upon to stay vigilant, to hold on to wonder, and the promise of becoming something of our choosing. We reaffirm to ourselves, that we do not make art, we live it.
Despite everything that strives to keep us from collective struggle, from common humanity, we say, today, and always: “Turipamwe”—we are together.
Who?
Those who dream of telling stories and those who have taken the first brave steps to bring their tales to the light; those who have enjoyed success on their writing journeys and those who are still looking for their first audience; the Doek! Team and the publications past and present contributors; and all of our supportive readers around the world—turipamwe!
This is Doek!—a literary magazine from Namibia.
Rémy is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. He is the founder, chairperson, and artministrator of Doek, an independent arts organisation in Namibia supporting the literary arts. He is also the editor-in-chief of Doek! Literary Magazine.
His debut novel The Eternal Audience Of One was first published in South Africa by Blackbird Books and is available worldwide from Scout Press (S&S). His work has appeared in The Johannesburg Review of Books, Brainwavez, American Chordata, Lolwe, and Granta, among others, with more forthcoming in numerous publications. He won the Africa Regional Prize of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He was shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2020 and 2021 and was also 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.