Rémy Ngamije's literary experimentation laboratory

Rémy Ngamije is multi-hyphenate: he was born in Rwanda and grew up in Namibia, went to university in South Africa and is not only a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, but also an educator, editor, photographer and founder of Doek, a Namibian arts organization . organization; Namibia's first literary magazine; and the biennial Doek literary festival. His desire and investment in building community through these efforts doesn't necessarily consciously infuse his fiction, but it is nonetheless echoed in the pages of his second book, “Only the Stars Know the Meaning of Space,” a collection polyvocal that often emphasizes the group. dynamics and relationships on individuals. Subtitled “A Literary Mixtape,” this fiction book is neither a simple collection of short stories nor a novel in short stories, but alternates between a continuous narrative (Side A) and 10 semi-independent stories (Side B.

The A-Side follows a writer whose parents called him The Way, the Goal, the Destination on the Horizon, but whose friends call him Rambo. He is about to turn 30 in the first story, “Hope, Prayer, and Hymn (or the Fall Until Now),” which serves as an introduction of sorts while laying out the most important parts of his life: his literary career. . dreams and ambitions (headlining literary events and rumored to be having an affair with Zadie Smith); the love story of his parents (they met at a nightclub and it was love at first dance) and the relatively recent death of his mother; his fight or die friends (Franco, Rinzlo, Lindo and Cicero; hence the need for the writer to receive a nickname with an O at the end); his ex-girlfriend (he's not over her); the things he spent his 20s doing instead of writing (sleeping, reading, learning salsa, teaching). “You're twenty-nine, family,” he says toward the end of the story, with a “paperback in your name.” True, and he has not written diligently, but he has done the other thing that writers are encouraged to do: live.

Throughout the book, the A-side stories expand on elements hinted at or briefly mentioned in the first story. His mother's death looms large throughout all of this, with the piece right in the middle of the book, “Tornado (Or the Only Poem You've Ever Written),” confronting the terrible night his brother killed him. He called the hospital at 3 am. . Still, the tone of most of the A-side stories is light-hearted, and the writer is an undeniably funny narrator (whose first stories are in the second-person “you” voice and the rest in the first person).

In “Yog'hurt (or Just Breathe)”, for example, the writer is in a yoga class with his girlfriend (an attempt to appease her by spending time doing “her things” and not just his) and is extremely skeptical . . He's no stranger to using his muscles in the gym, but he's convinced yoga is largely bunk. “You think half of getting through the session is pretending,” he says. “There is no way for everyone in this class to understand what is happening. It's like being back at conferences on postmodernism and everyone says they understand Derrida.” When the class gets to Warrior Pose, he thinks it's “just a lunge that went to private school,” while Warrior Two is “nothing more than stretching with a view.”

The writer's trajectory is largely one of growth and maturity, and each story focuses on a different aspect of his life, such as the girlfriend and the breakup, a woman he was involved with who always showed up with bruises from her mafia boyfriend , the time when his teenage self got tired of fistfights and started going to the library (and then got his friends to fall in love with books too). There remain some open questions and some minor inconsistencies, especially around the main ex-girlfriend, which reveal that the stories weren't necessarily written to go together. All but one of the pieces have been published before; quite a few won or were shortlisted for prestigious awards. But the writer's narrative still works and allows for the slippage of memory and the different and changing versions we all have of important moments in our lives.

Many of the B-side stories seem completely unrelated to the A-side narrative in terms of plot or characters. “Wicked,” for example, follows a woman in Nairobi who has an affair with a married man who goes every month to the U.N. refugee center in Dadaab, Kenya, to see if his wife and daughter have turned up there. “Annus Horribilis” is a beautiful, elegant piece about a couple's first terrible year that is told primarily through a six-page sentence full of parentheses, and while it is tempting to try to include the writer and his ex in the piece, is clearly not about them.

Then there are those that clearly tie into the A-side in some way: “Seven Silences of the Heart,” for example, is narrated by the spirit of the writer's aborted future sister, and “Granddaughter of the Octopus.” ” ends up being about the writer's great-grandmother.

What's striking about many of the stories (both A and B sides) is the way they focus on groups of people living life together, for better or worse. Two particularly notable independents are “The Neighborhood Watch,” about a group of people living under a bridge in Windhoek, Namibia, who work together to gather food and material goods to survive, and “Important Terminology for Military-Age Men.” ”, about the horrors committed by soldiers of the South African Defense Force during the years of the South African Border War (also known as the Namibian War of Independence).

Without a doubt, Ngamije is an excellent stylist, capable of delighting, amusing and horrifying in equal measure, and “Only the Stars Know the Meaning of Space”, which feels more connected and cohesive the more you read, is a fresh and exciting of a work. of collected fictions.

Ilana Masad is a book and cultural critic and author of “All My Mother's Lovers.”