Harare Review of Books

416 pages.

Expected publication date: Jan 23, 2024 (Erewhon Books)

Afrosurrealist horror.

If you’re a fan of African SFF, you won’t be a stranger to Tlotlo Tsamaase’s short fiction. Womb City is Tsamaase’s debut novel, a work of Afrosurrealist/Afrofuturist horror, set in a future Botswana where women are controlled by the state through microchips and … sorcery, and where you can extend your lifespan through body-hopping (that’s as wonderful as it sounds).

Readers experience this future through the life of Nelah, an architect who is married to an assistant commissioner of police. The couple’s been struggling with fertility issues; Nelah desperately wants a child, and they’ve run through most of their options. This, along with various other stresses in her life, sees Nelah eventually give in to a man who’s interested in her, and embarking on an affair. One night, high on all kinds of substances, Nelah and her lover commit a horrific crime that brings everything crashing down.

What makes this novel unforgettable are its horror elements. I didn’t think I would survive, but Tsamaase’s gift is to make you unable to look away, even from body horror (and there’s a TON in this novel. (Also, the undead.)). It is the point of all SF to make you listen, and Womb City explores feminist themes: women as walking wombs in patriarchal societies, women who “want it all”, and there’s even a really horrendous female patriarchal gatekeeper! Maybe my favourite character. Other themes: Black tax, families, and memory. Also really fun to know some of the places in the book. Also: that cover!!!

A really cracking way to start 2024 in African fiction. Thank you to Erewhon Books.