Rosa Mistika

A controversial Swahili classic by one of Tanzania’s most revered writers, banned on publication and finally translated into English

A New Yorker Best of the Week Pick

Teenage Rosa lives with her parents and four younger sisters in a village on Ukerewe Island in Lake Victoria, where she attends the local school and helps out on the family farm. Life would be relatively peaceful if it weren’t for Rosa’s father, who drinks to oblivion and abuses his wife and daughters. Initially relieved to be admitted into a residential school on the mainland, Rosa soon discovers that she’s ill prepared for life outside her village. As she becomes accustomed to the attention--and manipulations--of men, she begins to understand her sexuality as a weapon. But this understanding, born of the need to survive in a world of double standards, comes with a price.

Rosa Mistika is a radical narrative exploration of womanhood, maternal love, agency, and authority--and the first-ever Swahili novel to address issues of domestic violence, sexual coercion, and abortion. Through the story of a young woman and her community it poses the enduring question: To what degree are we responsible for the choices we make, and to what degree are we acted upon by forces outside our control?

Euphrase Kezilahabi (1944-2020) was a revered Tanzanian novelist, poet, and scholar. Jay Boss Rubin is an award-winning translator from Swahili. Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ is associate professor at Cornell University and cofounder of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature.