Just one week before his untimely death, Uwe mailed me a copy of a short story he had written entitled “Two old men”, asking me to read it for him and provide constructive critique and editing. It was, as I had told him at the time, a wonderful story – a story that truly understood the difficulties of people who had lived through the liberation struggles in Africa on both sides of them, and are trying to come to terms with the world of today where they have to live together and learn to overcome those old ideas to build a better place for their children.
Uwe was writing from his deepseated love for his adopted continent and country and it spoke to me from every word. Uwe also told me that it was intended to be the first of a series of stories that would follow his two old men on their journey. Unfortunately, he never had a chance to write part two. For six months I kept my copy safe, wondering what to do with it. I knew he wanted to publish it, but I also know it was not the final draft yet and that Uwe was not entirely satisfied with it yet.
Finally, in the past week, I spoke to Joris Komen about it. He had also been a close friend of Uwe’s and after some discussion we agreed that I should publish it. Even if it’s just on this blog. Perhaps somebody will read it and do it the honor it deserves, to be more formally published in a collection or a magazine, perhaps not – but at least some people will get to read it. I highly recommend it, I generally scorn pretty much any writing about African politics for being shallow and missing without exception at least half the picture on whatever it is about – in that pile of muck, Uwe’s last story is a shining diamond and I hope that my publishing it here will get it at least a bit of the recognition it so richly deserves.
So without further ado, here is a link to the story in PDF format.