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Award-winning Rwandan-born Namibian author Rémy Ngamije returns with his second book, ‘Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space’, a 2024 release that initially intrigues as a collection of his celebrated short fiction.   Before reading it, I was under the impression that ‘Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space’ was merely a collection of short stories. It, after all, contains multiple award-winning short stories, like ‘Granddaughter of the Octopus’, which won the Africa Regional Prize of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2021, or ‘The Giver of Nicknames’ and ‘The Neighbourhood Watch’, which were both shortlisted for the AKO Cain Prize for African Writing in different years.  However, about a third of the way through the collection – I’m embarrassed to admit – I finally realised what Ngamije was doing. I experienced that much-desired ‘aha moment’ when consuming any media. ‘Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space’ is more than an anthology – it builds a universe wherein it tells the story of an aspiring writer in a time of grief and change in a complicated world.  “Okay. Listen. This is how it’s going to go, kid: in a week’s time you’ll be thirty and there’s nothing you can do about it.”  Told through stories on the A-side of the ‘literary mixtape’, we learn about Rambo, his home, his family, his group of friends, and the loss he lives with. The B-side features independent and unrelated short stories – seemingly? I have my theories.   Ngamije’s use of humour and references not only add to the entertainment aspect of the book, but it also makes the stories feel more personal.  “You did that thing where you said you didn’t deserve her. She did that Destiny’s Child thing where she realised you didn’t. She went Sub-Zero cold, fatality-kicked your ass out of her Earth Realm.” “Sunlight or Ajax – she diluted the green ooze in the bottle and made it last longer, the hallmark of an excellent drug dealer. She cut the green with water, leaving just enough kick to deal with the grease.” As with his 2019 debut novel, ‘The Eternal Audience of One’, Ngamije’s writing is clever, entertaining, heartbreaking and strikingly beautiful, even with changing styles throughout each story.  “Everything is a matter of time. The present runs past and becomes the past and loops all the way around and then comes back as the future.” “Her passing was like ripping North from the compass face. The needle of your life spun around recklessly looking for its own purpose, its own anchor, its own driving force, something that was not she and what she did for you.”  “We were boys-will-be-boys kind of boys, all from Windhoek-Worst, eager to rep our hood like we had seen the American kids do. We didn’t have Twenty-First and Lewis or cool street names like that. Just streets named after scientists and dead composers.”  Additionally, thousands – if not millions – have written about one of the most common human experiences: grief. But what an artist can aim for, is to discuss and express grief in new ways that will perhaps affect audiences in a different manner.  In what might be my favourite story of the collection, ‘Crunchy Green Apples (Or OMO)’, the still unknown main character grieves a profound loss through a narrative device I had not yet read before – a grocery list.  Each familiar item reminds the protagonist of a memory he either cherishes or feels shameful about. Guilt, remorse, regret – these often go hand in hand with grief.  “You did not call her Patience when she put up with you and your anarchical teenage-hood. You did not call her Love when she was around, an unwavering female presence. You never called her all the nice things she was to you.” I say this not as gratuitous flattery of the author, but ‘Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space’ is unlike anything I have read before. Ngamije was ambitious, experimental, and luckily for us, succeeded in his attempt to publish a book worth remembering, and rereading.  Art is risky, and a risk was surely taken. ‘Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space’ was published by Scout Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, and is available from The Book Den. The post Only Stars: Ngamije’s Universe Expands Beyond the Short Story appeared first on The Namibian.