If We Exist - Shaah Iyo Caano

2018 Watty Winner

Two men in love torn apart by war.

Yuri Karamov's existence is like Schrodinger's cat, simultaneously both dead and alive. In Ru Konstantin's mind, Yuri's still the same vibrant young man he was when their lives diverged. But the question, the one Ru is too afraid to acknowledge, is whether his best friend turned first love is still alive.

In the span of eighteen years, their hometown of Dronesk goes from a quiet, humdrum town to a besieged territory of the BKA; a radical militia group who wants to eradicate the Arash--people like Ru--from Rujga Province. Yuri Karamov is one of the recruits fighting for a Brommian liberation. After years of lost contact, Ru returns to Dronesk in search of his best friend, confronting not only the ruins of his ancestral home and the new realities of a post-liberation movement, but questions about love, freedom, and the price of self-governance.

If We Exist, is a coming-of-age story that examines friendship, sexuality, class struggles and ethnic tensions through the lens of Ru Konstantin; desperate, anxiety-ridden, and awfully nostalgic.