How dare you?

 

You will read the words audacious and dare quite a few times before you get to the end of this article.

Being a writer in Namibia is downright audacious, how dare you? No one writes form small places; they write about small places. Why can’t you stick to your box? Go and be a: Doctor; Engineer; Accountant; Scientist — a respectable profession. Why dabble in other things? Do you really want to add imposter syndrome, writers block, and self-deprecation to your list of problems?

How dare you?

Well… How dare you not? Lest you continue to complain about people telling your stories and contorting the narrative to present to the world what you are not.

The only thing slightly more audacious than being a writer in Namibia is deciding to write fiction. How dare you? Don’t you know that only people who have risked their lives for their country or are the first black person in their country to achieve something warrant literary fame? Why can’t you wait until you have lived long enough and have done something with your life? You have never dodged bullets in the liberation struggle or hid freedom fighters, you are not a motivational speaker or successful business person, you are not even the first person from your village to become a dentist.

How dare you?

Well… How dare you not? The stories that your ancestors put their wisdom into are all fictional, imagination breaks confines that reality cannot escape.

You know what is truly audacious? Starting a literary magazine in Africa as a platform for African writers. The only things that trumps that, is starting a literary magazine in Namibia.

How dare you? How dare you not?

Daring is how the world is changed, having the audacity to try.

Daring to try is how Doek Lit Mag was formed, a shout into the literary universe, a declaration that Namibia too has the audaciousness to tell stories and stake its claim in the movement changing the landscape of African literature. Doek needs you! The way any army needs soldiers. A mine cannot run without a resource to extract, Doek needs you! It needs you the photographer, you the POET, you the SHORT STORY writer, it needs you’re the ESSAYIST, it needs you who dares, you who has the audacity to try.

How dare you?

Well… How dare you not?

The prelude to the penultimate fight in a Transformers movie is always Optimus Prime sending a clarion call to the Autobots to stage a daring fight to protect ungrateful humankind from annihilation, an audacious resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. So, I am calling all Namibian writers, poets (word benders), photographers, visual artists — all creatives. In Namibia, in the Diaspora, even those of you in the afterlife — okay, just kidding. Submit your work to Doek for consideration for their fourth issue, you have until the 15th of Januworry.

How dare you? How dare you not?


 

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