“When they died, their bodies were thrown into the great river for the sharks. Then they were forgotten. As if they had never lived.” – Kukuri, in Mama Namibia

These are Kukuri’s words to Jahohora as he tells her about the thousands of Herero and Nama who died in the German concentration camp at Shark Island in South West Africa more than a century ago. For the victims of this death camp, there were no gravestones, no monuments and no descendants to remember their names.

We can never give the genocide victims back their names. But we can remember them – as well as the victims of other genocides – in stories, in song, through poetry, on stage and on film.

In telling their stories, we give voice to their humanity. In grieving for them, we mourn for their past and the future they were denied. And in remembering them, we break the silence that allows genocides to continue unchecked.

This is the purpose of Mama Namibia, a historical novel about the first genocide of the 20th century.