Shelfies #54: Tlotlo Tsamaase

For the last few years I’ve been always moving—moving houses, moving oceans, moving states—and books are the most cumbersome and costly to move with, but I treasure their tiny worlds under my palms and cloaking my walls with them.

The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay

I’m always hungrily and desperately scavenging for books by Batswana authors or authors from southern Africa, so imagine my joyful heart when I came across a book by Warona Jay.

The Grand Scheme of Things is a slim novel, set in London, narrated through a dual-POV (a black Motswana female playwright, Eddie, and a white British man, Hugo) and tightly packed with character nuance as the characters, through wit and scheming, attempt to outsmart the racism in the theater world. Despite her commendable play, Eddie realizes that she can’t break into the theater world with her Black skin and name, Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo. After many brutal rejections from agents, she enlists her new friend, Hugo, to be the face and author of her play—a cool dystopian novel on immigration and race—that obtains an immediate yes from the same agent that rejected Eddie, who pushes it through to production to incredible success. I was curious to see what happened to their plan thereafter.

The prose is gorgeous and immersive, allowing us in-depth access into the characters’ minds and their different lives—I wish I could experience this book again for the first time! 

Victim by Andrew Boryga

I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator Anthony Rey Perez did such a marvelous job in capturing the voice of the character and the tension of every scene that my jaw would drop at moments that felt very much lifelike, like I was eavesdropping on real people’s conversations.

The protagonist, Javier, is diabolical. As a teenager, he receives sound advice from a professor on his application letters that, emphasizing his marginalizations and victimhood, would grant him a full scholarship to universities. To Javier’s surprise, he actually gets into a fully-funded program. This plants a seed in him, of how he can use his identity and background to his advantage, especially after meeting his girlfriend, who teaches him the language of such identity politics and activism. But he lies, schemes, and backstabs his loved ones to grift his way to the top, until it comes crashing down. 

The words of the author, Andrew Boryga, summarize this book perfectly: “It is a satire about how victimhood and identity is packaged, sold, and capitalized on for political and institutional gain.”

Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala by Joel Cabrita, January 2023,  Ohio University Press

This monograph, authored by Joel Cabrita, chronicles the life and times of Regina Twala, a Black female scholar who encountered systemic racism, sexism, and barriers within academia and publishing in South Africa. It covers the political turmoil of South Africa and Swaziland.

Due to colonial erasure and barriers in publishing and academia that Black women encountered, there’s a lack of representation of their voice and identity, as most literature is written by white scholars and authors. I came across a podcast interview with the author, Joel Cabrita, a white female scholar who delved into the nuance of white privilege in telling stories of Black Africans.

Tlotlo Tsamaase is a Motswana author of Womb City and The Silence of the Wilting Skin. She has two forthcoming books in 2026: House of Margins and her debut YA novel, The Bloodwinds. Her short fiction has appeared in Africa Risen, The Best of World SF Volume 1, Clarkesworld, Terraform, Africanfuturism Anthology, Chiral Mad 5, and other publications.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. For more Shelfies, join us on Instagram @shelfiesplease.