Review: Body shocks in a new breed of Afrofuturism
A cracking way to start 2024 in African fiction comes with intriguing concepts and gore
Jacqueline Nyathi
If you’re a fan of African science fiction and fantasy, 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 bodyhopping (that’s as wonderful as it sounds).
Readers experience this future through the life of Nelah, an architect in a troubled marriage with 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 other stresses in her life, sees Nelah 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.
Woven through the novel are elements of local tradition from around Matsieng, just outside Gaborone. Tsamaase has built a complex mythology and world for the novel, and it takes a while to make sense of it, and perhaps one never quite manages.
This is part of the pleasure of the novel.
It is the point of all science fiction to make you listen, and Womb City explores deeply feminist themes: women as walking wombs in patriarchal societies; women who “want it all”; and then there’s even a really horrendous female patriarchal gatekeeper, Serati, who is possibly my favourite character. Other themes include Black tax, the complexity of family and an exploration of memory.
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 tonne in this novel. (Also, the undead.) Additionally, the cover, designed by Colin Verdi and Samira Iravani, is amazing.