Novel
Rosa Mistika
Euphrase Kezilahabi · 1971
Synopsis
On the island of Ukerewe, in Lake Victoria, Rosa is the eldest of the five daughters of Regina, who works the land to pay for their schooling, and of Zakaria, a drunken and brutal father. Brought up under such strict surveillance that she stops speaking to boys, she leaves for a girls' boarding school, then for a teachers' college. Ill prepared for this sudden freedom, she becomes the prey of men and of adults charged with supervising her, who abuse their position.
Context
Begun in 1966, the novel appeared in 1971 from the East African Literature Bureau. It troubled the school authorities and the Church: banned from classrooms a few months after its publication, it was later reprinted and placed on the secondary syllabus in Tanzania and Kenya. It takes up female sexuality and questions figures of authority. Its first English translation, by Jay Boss Rubin, appeared in 2025 from Yale University Press.
Who it is for
For reading the novel that caused a scandal in the Tanzania of the seventies, available in English only.
Prizes and reception
A great popular success, the book became a classic of Swahili literature once the ban was lifted.
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