Enter for Doek! awards now
Bank Windhoek reaffirmed its commitment to the arts as the official sponsor of the second Bank Windhoek Doek! Literary Awards.The bank’s Executive Officer for Marketing and Corporate Communication Services, Jacquiline Pack, shared this news in Windhoek earlier this week. She expressed the bank’s continued support of the awards, with the total backing ranging from N$400 000 to date.
In line with Bank Windhoek's active role in the world of arts, Pack recommitted the use of the bank’s wide national footprint across the country through its branches, social media platforms and website to reach wider audiences and garner submissions for awards from talented minds.
The awards, which celebrate Namibian talents in the arena of writing (fiction and nonfiction), poetry, and visual arts, were created by the Doek! Literary Magazine (Doek!), an online magazine produced in Namibia and founded in 2019 with the primary goal of creating a diverse local literary culture.
The magazine’s co-founder, Rémy Ngamije, called the awards a "literary tradition that Bank Windhoek helped kick start".
The Bank Windhoek Doek! Literary Awards are prestigious and highly coveted within the arts community.
Namafu Amutse, the 2021 Visual Arts Category winner, said there had been an increase in the support and interest in her work, which led her to exhibiting in cities such as London and Dubai. Her work was also featured in Lolwe, a Kenyan-based literary magazine. She is, to date, the only Namibian visual artist to have her work published in Lolwe.
The primary eligibility for entry to the 2023 Doek! Literary Awards are to be Namibian, whether in the country or the diaspora, and share a piece of art in at least one of the four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts. If an entry is published, the artist is added to the awards automatically.
There will then be a shortlist of 12 artists, three in each category, who will each receive different prizes while each winner from the categories is awarded the grand prize of N$5 000. The awards will consider publications for the two previous and the two upcoming editions of Doek!, giving two more opportunities for entry.
The awards take place in November, and the months leading up to this include engagements for information sharing, ensuring as many people are reached as possible.