I want to thank every person inside and outside the literary ecosystem that has made this moment possible: every African literary ancestor (known and unknown) and contemporary African authors whose voices and works paved the way for us; my agent, Naomi Davis, my publisher, Erewhon Books, and every writer and organization that helped me.
This award wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the ASFS team that wanted to highlight African voices, and I’m truly honored and blessed to receive this award. I look forward to seeing next year’s winners and ASFS’s continuous impressive evolution.
– Tlotlo Tsamasse
About Tlotlo Tsamasse
Tlotlo Tsamaase is a Motswana author of Womb City, The Silence of Wilting Skin, and two forthcoming books in 2026: House of Margins and The Bloodwinds.
Tlotlo received support from the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and her story “Behind Our Irises” jointly won the Nommo Award. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple best-of anthologies, Africa Risen, New Suns 2, Chiral Mad 5, and other venues.
Botswana lies in the heart of Southern Africa, bordered by Namibia to the west and north, South Africa to the south and southeast, Zimbabwe to the east, and a short stretch of Zambia to the northeast.
The country is famous for the sweeping sands of the Kalahari Desert and the extraordinary Okavango Delta, one of the world’s largest inland deltas, where floodwaters transform dry land into a lush wildlife haven.
Botswana is home to Africa’s largest elephant population and is internationally respected for its strong conservation policies and political stability. Despite being largely arid, it has one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, driven historically by diamonds. Its capital and largest city, Gaborone, is a modern urban centre that blends rapid development with traditional culture.
WOMB CITY
Part eco-horror, part psychological thriller, and part political speculative fiction, Womb City has been praised for its lyrical prose, bold worldbuilding, and its unflinching look at patriarchy, violence, and the surveillance state.
Womb City is a chilling cyber-punk exploration of bodily autonomy, state surveillance, and the haunting echo of past sins. In a near-future Botswana where the government monitors citizens through implanted identity chips, Nelah, a woman desperate for a child, becomes entangled in a deadly hit-and-run cover-up. But in this world, the dead do not stay silent, and Nelah soon finds herself hunted by the truth, by ghosts, and by a system designed to police the body as much as the mind.
