Rosa Mistika

Euphrase Kezilahabi (1944–2020) was a Tanzanian novelist, poet, and scholar. Jay Boss Rubin is an award-winning translator from Swahili. Annmarie Drury is professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York.

“Originally written in 1971, Kezilahabi’s novel of changing cultural attitudes in Tanzania, particularly toward female sexuality, was at first banned, before becoming a classic. . . . Playing in the space between social realism and fabulist storytelling, [the] novel asks moral questions about parents’ responsibilities and the effects of women’s liberation, sparing no one but withholding final judgment.”—New YorkerA New Yorker Best Books of 2025 Selection“A tremendously important novel.”—Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature“Carefully and beautifully translated, Rosa Mistika is a profound meditation on how we come to independence as individuals, as women and men steeped in patriarchy, and in societies still wearing neocolonial rags—and then when tasked with freedom, what we do with it.”—Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, author of The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Identity, Language and Ownership“First banned, Euphrase Kezilahabi’s wonderful novel Rosa Mistika is now required reading. Neither fool nor victim, plucky Rosa discovers boys in this wild yet very believable tale, but it doesn’t go well. She must struggle hard to dodge the obstacles of father, double standards, desire, and motherhood. Bringing Tanzanian mores to life for innocent readers everywhere, Rosa Mistika will become a classic for women all over the world.”—Teresa Svoboda, winner of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize and the translator of Cleaned the Crocodile’s Teeth: Nuer Song“Thanks to Jay Boss Rubin, Euphrase Kezilahabi’s powerful first novel, Rosa Mistika, finds its way into English at long last. For its sympathetic focus on the plight of women and girls in Tanzania, the novel is as relevant today as it was when first published in 1971.”—Jeffery Renard Allen, author of Fat Time and Other Stories and Song of the Shank“This cutting-edge translation of a book that has continuously stirred the Swahili literary scene gives us access to a world and contradictions that are rarely available in the West, at a time when we question what is translated, how, and why.”—Ida Hadjivayanis, SOAS, University of London  “In Jay Boss Rubin’s excellent rendering, I felt like I was reading Rosa Mistika in Swahili again, but also like I was reading the book for the first time. There are two languages here, not just one in place of another. A remarkable work of translation.”—Idza Luhumyo, winner of the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing