Naseem Jamnia’s debut novella is a reminder of what you can truly do with the fantasy genre. There is a depth and richness to their world, characters, and magic. Beautiful and bittersweet, The Bruising of Qilwa is a story of immigration and borders, of identity and culture, of blood and oppression and family—written with an expert flourish of prose and eye for detail. The Bruising of Qilwa is a masterful debut, one that marks the continued ascendancy of Jamnia’s literary star.
In the city-state of Qilwa, Firuz-e Jafari, a healer who uses taboo blood magic, has been working hard. They have to; only recently arrived, fleeing war along with their mother and brother, it’s up to Firuz to start making some coin and put food on the table. And with a new kind of plague roaming the streets of the free city-state, one that seems magical in nature, they have their work cut out for them. Mix in a brutal government, a new blood magic practitioner with no mentor, and rising tensions at home, The Bruising of Qilwa is ready to boil over.
Jamnia’s debut reads as though it is their fourth or fifth novel; from page one, there is a confidence to their narrative voice, briskly walking you through everything you need to know in only a few paragraphs. It’s like worldbuilding on expert mode, as we’re introduced to Qilwa through the lens of a newly-arrived migrant with their own unique outsider perspective, even as we’re given details about the plague, the potential prejudices of Firuz’s employer, the ins and outs of new arrivals to the city, as well as brief en media res mention of the various magics before even getting into the nitty-gritty of blood magic, feared by Qilwans.
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The Bruising of Qilwa
And Jamina accomplishes all of this while also focusing on the quirks of characters meeting for the first time, showing readers the warmth and love between Firuz and their brother Parviz, and displaying an ease of queerness and a variety of identities between characters and cultures. The Bruising of Qilwa is not a novella to breeze through; you will miss much if you intend to race through the streets of Qilwa. Jamnia is a writer’s writer, luxuriating in paragraphs that contains as much detail as a page, told with perfectly parsed prose. It is a masterful talent, reminiscent of Steven Erikson and Samuel R. Delaney, and one Jamnia employs to their utmost. If they can do all of this in a novella, we should all be eager for the day they choose to pursue a novel.
In their Afterword, Jamnia writers from their perspective as a Persian-Chicagoan (from their bio), that part of what they were exploring in their debut novella was, “What does it mean to be oppressed when you were once an oppressor?” With the history that exists between Qilwans, Dilmuns, and Sassanians, passing the role of conqueror and conquered back and forth in a bloody ballet for centuries, Jamnia and The Bruising of Qilwa offers no easy answers for how to face the past or work towards the future. Unlike much fantasy, especially of the epic variety, when there is violence, it comes as a last resort and even then, there is no solace in victory, no regression back to the status quo. Often, Firuz enters into battles of ethics and morality, appealing to those around them for better ways forward than blade’s end. Even then, Jamnia refuses to find a truly happy ending, not even as a placeholder for more challenges to come. Much like the world we live in now, as millions of migrants search for those same answers in a world that will all too happily brutalize them and shove them into their own version of an “easy answer,” Firuz and their friends continually are learning, growing, and searching for a way to make their world one of respect and dignity for all, even in that long, red shadow of history.
That I’m describing a novella and not a six hundred plus novel is still as astonishing to me as it may be to you; for that feat alone, I recommend this stellar debut by a writer whose voice I pray we keep hearing from for decades to come. I urge you to come for Jamnia’s intricate and complex world, as beloved for its bruises as for its beauty, and those who walk its streets, tending to the health and care of others. And if anything, come for kind and righteous Firuz, who is searching for the best in people. Open the cover, greet them, and show that you too can learn and grow alongside them, towards a more equitable and just future in Qilwa and everywhere.
The Bruising of Qilwa is published by Tachyon.
Martin Cahill is a writer living in Queens who works as the Marketing and Publicity Manager for Erewhon Books. He has fiction work forthcoming in 2021 at Serial Box, as well as Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Fireside Fiction. Martin has also written book reviews and essays for Book Riot, Strange Horizons, and the Barnes and Noble SF&F Blog. Follow him online at @mcflycahill90 and his new Substack newsletter, Weathervane, for thoughts on books, gaming, and other wonderfully nerdy whatnots.
