Fantasy Novella Review: The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase

 


The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase 

The Silence of the Wilting Skin is a 2020 short novella (probably more qualifies as a novelette by Hugo definition) that I missed when it first came out in 2020.  But despite its short length, its a novella with a ton of symbolism and a lot of power, telling the tale of a young African woman whose family, culture and heritage are steadily being steadily erased, stolen, and trampled on by privileged other, with no regard for what it is doing.  And I mean a lot of symbolism, but whereas such works (often annoyingly referred to as "literary") sometimes bounce off me, this one really works and is well worth your time.  

Quick Plot Summary:  "The only time we ever become us is when we're dead," when we're on the train along with the rest of our dead relatives.  But when we're alive, our skin falls apart, our names remain forgotten, and many of us are unable to see what the rest of us really look like - while the District on the Other Side of the City suffers no such problems, with their paler skin and clam streets.  And the Other Side of the City keeps encroaching more and more, threatening my family, my love, my soul, and even the train where our dead live, where they've finally managed to be themselves, free of it all.  

Thoughts:  I apologize for the confusing plot summary, but well, this is a hard novella to summarize, so I instead tried to sort of portray the feel of this novella from its own perspective - even the narrator has no name as her people have lost it due to the actions of those on the Other Side of the City, those with the real Pale Skin who keep encroaching more and more on their lives.  And so they pay money to kick people out of their ancestral homes, take their voices, their cultures, and even their skins, such that the narrator's people can only truly be themselves after death - which is the only time their skin looks as black as it really is.  Of course the narrator's own culture isn't wholly good in this one, with her having to essentially pay a literal tax in order to love her girlfriend (homophobia at work).  Still, this is a powerful novella in the symbolism of how cultural appropriation and destruction devastates, even with it almost all being written as if it's a dreamworld.  Recommended.