Womb City is author Tlotlo Tsamaase’s debut novel; having previously read xer short fiction in a few anthologies (Africa Risen and The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction) I was very happy to read xer first longer work. 

It is certainly a genre-bender – what starts as a dystopian sci-fi with themes of surveillance and biotech takes a turn toward fast-paced horror, with the end of the book feeling like an entirely different text than the beginning. It is also ambitious – there are a lot of themes here, and strong commentary on bodily autonomy, the relationship between memory and identity, and the ways that those harmed by patriarchy also serve to maintain it. I liked a lot about this. What didn’t quite work for me was how jarring the shift in tone is, and some of the pacing; toward the end, the pace was so fast that it definitely felt like a few too many ideas were squished in for the page count. Some parts felt a bit too information-heavy – the world-building is fascinating and complex, but in some places explained too clearly to the reader, resulting in ‘info-dump’ that often wasn’t necessary and disrupted the dialogue. All that said, though, I found the plot exciting and couldn’t put it down.

Content warnings: pretty much all of them – body horror, gore, blood, violence, injury detail, death, murder, gun violence, rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, drug abuse, death of a parent, suicide, misogyny, sexism, homophobia, medical content, medical trauma, human trafficking. 

Thank you to Erewhon Books, Kensington Books, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.