Maybe there’s something in here for you.” He was fiddling with his girlfriend in the bedroom I was on the couch in the lounge. His note said: “ I read this when I was about your age. A friend of mine-more like a mentor, really-then living in Curaçao, sent me SAMARKAND in the mail. I was directionless, unsure about my life’s trajectory.
I first read this in 2012-I was in university in Cape Town, South Africa. I am going to tell you its history.” - Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, translated by Russell Harris (Abacus, 1992) “At the bottom of the Atlantic there is a book. While there are many opening lines that I can recite from memory-lines from William Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, Terry Pratchett, and Ama Ata Aidoo, to name a few-these six lines below were guiding lights for writing The Eternal Audience of One. When composing the first draft of The Eternal Audience of One, forthcoming from Scout Press (Simon & Schuster) in August 2021, I wrestled with various opening lines trying, like many fledgling writers, to pay tribute to some of my favorite opening lines from literature. Whether it is nonfiction or fiction, once I find that first sentence, the path is made by writing and walking-however long, however far. But the primary incision, the first pen stroke that sets the narrative tempo, is often elusive. When I’m especially lucky, like with some short stories, I know the ending. Oftentimes I have the general idea of the story in my head and a vague intuition of where the plot will go. The most challenging aspect of any writing, for me, is the opening line. His work has appeared in many publications and more of his writing can be read on his website.
He is the cofounder and editor-in-chief of Doek! Literary Magazine, Namibia’s first literary magazine. Rémy Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer.