What a list! Our eye is immediately drawn to "the first collection of Swahili Afro-Speculative fiction in English, The Witness of Nina Mvungi and Other Stories by Esther Karin Mngodo", but this collection of reccos could keep us going for all 2026, pretty sure #booksky #weird #literature

Wrapping up 2025 with translations of three poems by Euphrase Kezilahabi, published today in The Fortnightly Review. Happy New Year / Heri ya Mwaka Mpya to all!! fortnightlyreview.substack.com/p/translatio...

THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI AND OTHER STORIES made @hfr.bsky.social 's year-end list. Honored to be among the weirdos heavyfeatherreview.org/2025/12/29/w...

“Brother Morpheme had succeeded in keeping his emotions out of his work for the 150,982 assignments he’d handled prior to Ms. Mvungi.” Up now: “The Witness of Nina Mvungi” by @koimolove.bsky.social, translated by @jaybossrubin.bsky.social. Art by Valerie Hammond. evergreenreview.com/read/the-wit...

Very fine essay on teaching Kiswahili in Istanbul, by Abdirashid Diriye Kalmoy. Because of its hybridity and ability to connect Africa and the wider world, teaching Swahili in Istanbul is "not an accidental exercise, but a continuation of this cosmopolitan spirit." www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-e...

Just published on the Asymptote Blog: a beautifully crafted and incredibly insightful review of THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI AND OTHER STORIES by @koimolove.bsky.social. Review by Rebecca Suzuki—hybrid forms specialist + fellow translator www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/12...

We at Portland Tennis Courterly are honored and humbled to feature the brilliant writing + brave reporting of @marisakabas.bsky.social in our latest issue. This is a reprint of her dispatch from the US Open, which first appeared in The Handbasket on September 8th www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-us-o...

And the final piece in the collection—the title story, "The Witness of Nina Mvungi"—is out today in @evergreenreview.bsky.social, accompanied by beautiful artwork from Valerie Hammond. Thanks to Africa Editor Jeffery Renard Allen for all the support. "Ninaaaaaaa!" evergreenreview.com/read/the-wit...

Greetings from Tennis City racquetmag.com/greetings-fr...

subscribe to the handbasket, a one-person operation that produced both of these stories in one day. www.thehandbasket.co/subscribe

Honored to be featured along with @koimolove.bsky.social on Jill! (a Women+ in Translation reading series organized by @larissakyzer.bsky.social). If anyone can tell me on which product the slogan on my shirt used to appear, I'll send them a free copy of our new book! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYAF...

A whole chapter of Hitler and My Mother-in-Law at Evergreen Review @evergreenreview.bsky.social. Order the rest of the book or ebook @ORbooks.bsky.social evergreenreview.com/read/witch-h...

Out today from @hangingloosepress.bsky.social: THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI AND OTHER STORIES by @koimolove.bsky.social, translated from the Swahili by yours truly. The first collection of Swahili Afro-Speculative fiction to come alive in English. Scoop it up! itascabooks.com/products/the... #booksky

Literary Translation Reading + book launch for THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI by @koimolove.bsky.social one week from today, at Mother Foucault's Bookshop in Portland, Oregon—karibuni wote!! #booksky #translation #Swahili #fasihi

Tomorrow night in Tennis City, USA

Our sponsor, The Queens Review, is open for submissions. Send them your most unruly, boundary-pushing work by December 15th at: bit.ly/TQRSubmit

“Outside, it was a time of rain; inside, it was a time of darkness.” A government official’s past comes back to haunt him in distressingly familiar form. Read “Mayai, Minister of Disease” by Euphrase Kezilahabi (tr. Richard Prins): wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

New on WWB: @jaybossrubin.bsky.social’s translation of “Rare Goods” by Esther Karin Mngodo. This excerpt depicts the lives of albino children who start a secret society to protect themselves from trafficking in body parts in Tanzania. Read Here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Newly translated #Swahili fiction from award-winning Tanzanian author Esther Karin Mngodo @koimolove.bsky.social, in the spotlight at @wwborders.bsky.social. From the story collection THE WITNESS OF NINA MVUNGI, coming 12/1 from @hangingloosepress.bsky.social wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Excellent article by @jeremiahhayden.bsky.social providing over a decade of context to truths + lies about Portland, Oregon. Co-published with the indefatigable @streetroots.bsky.social

BIG NEWS!! Johns Hopkins University is the premier sponsor of #AWP26 in Baltimore, and The Hopkins Review’s Volume 18 featured cover artist, the one-and-only John Waters, is the conference’s keynote speaker!! JHU’s Sesquicentennial Celebration is getting exciting. 🦩 🦩 🦩 See you in Baltimore!

"Five translators had to be hospitalized for confusion" is a pretty good one

One week from today at @citylightsbooks.bsky.social in San Francisco: "Celebrating Euphrase Kezilahabi," presented by @catranslation.org / @twolinespress.bsky.social. I'll be reading from ROSA MISTIKA and conversing w/ the endlessly thoughtful Annmarie Drury :) www.catranslation.org/event/jay-bo...

In the mail: pleased to see another translation from Swahili, by @jaybossrubin.bsky.social — Esther Karin Mngodo's 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑀𝑣𝑢𝑛𝑔𝑖 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠, from @hangingloosepress.bsky.social www.hangingloosepress.com/book/witness...

Happy to finally hold my copy! "Without Sun" translated from Swahili to English by Jay Boss Rubin @jaybossrubin.bsky.social is now out! Get your copy! @hopkinsreview.bsky.social 🥳

Tonight in Albany, NY! I'll be reading and in conversation with Albany translator Shaina Brassard.

Excellent story by Taylor Griggs in @portlandmercury.com about Portland Tennis Courterly, which is neither a secret literary magazine nor on Bluesky as of yet . . . www.portlandmercury.com/books/2025/0...

One month from today @citylightsbooks.bsky.social in San Francisco (and via livestream): "Celebrating Euphrase Kezilahabi – with Jay Boss Rubin and Annmarie Drury." I'll be reading from Rosa Mistika, and in conversation with a fellow translator of Kezilahabi. Karibuni! citylights.com/events/celeb...

@newyorker.com considers Rosa Mistika by Euphrase Kezilahabi translated from the Swahili by Jay Boss Rubin one of the best books of the year so far!

Two weeks from today @ Dove & Hudson in Albany, NY: "Translator Reading: Literature from Tanzania & Bolivia." I'll be reading from ROSA MISTIKA, by Euphrase Kezilahabi, alongside Capital Region translator Shaina Brassard, who'll be reading from her translations of Rodrigo Urquiola Flores's stories.

Beautiful new creative nonfiction by my friend Rebecca Suzuki in The Los Angeles Review. "We ate quickly, knowing we didn’t have much time if we wanted to practice dying and make the 7 o’clock train back to Nagoya." losangelesreview.org/practicing-d...

Excited to share my latest translation, "Without Sun," by the inimitable Esther Karin Mngodo (@koimolove.bsky.social), out now in @hopkinsreview.bsky.social. Read it for free: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl.... Purchase the print edition, w/ cover art by John Waters (!): hopkinsreview.com/shop/p/volum...

This is going to be great

"La Venezolana" by Rodrigo Urquiola Flores, translated from the Spanish by Shaina Brassard, is out today in the latest issue of Asymptote (as part of the journal's ongoing Special Feature on the figure of the outsider). Read it in Spanish + English here! www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feat...

@wwborders.bsky.social  calls Rosa Mistika by Euphrase Kezilahabi "a social novel that occasionally ventures into more stylized territory," and features it on it's watchlist.

Rosa Mistika is atop @wwborders.bsky.social's June Watchlist wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

First is “Rosa Mistika” by Euphrase Kezilahabi (tr. @jaybossrubin.bsky.social , @yalepress.bsky.social ), “a novel about a young woman facing the hypocrisies and hazards of her society” translated from Swahili. bookshop.org/a/169/978030...

Many years later, as he faced the editorial board, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani was to remember that distant afternoon when his father told him to abolish ICE

World Swahili Language Day is coming up on July 7th. I'll be reading from my English translation of Rosa Mistika at this wonderful event put together by @soasuni.bsky.social. Karibuni wote! www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

This is a fantastic novel

Honored to see a mini-review of Rosa Mistika in this week's issue of The New Yorker. "Playing in the space between social realism and fabulist storytelling" is a wonderfully apt description! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Happy pub day to "Rosa Mistika!" Stay tuned for a reading we'll host with Jay this September in SF 👀!

A Q&A with @jaybossrubin.bsky.social —translator of Rosa Mistika by Euphrase Kezilahabi—is now live! Read "Realism and Rosa Mistika: A Conversation with Jay Boss Rubin" below: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2025/06/17/realism-and-rosa-mistika-a-conversation-with-jay-boss-rubin/

My ex-ex-ex student Jay Boss Rubin @jaybossrubin.bsky.social has just published a translation of Rosa Mistika, a classic in Tanzania by Euphrase Kezilahabi. Get it @yalebooks or yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300.... Such a cover!

"Just like how in the novel’s opening there’s this household within a village, village within an island, and island within a lake, there are...different kinds of telescoping points of views." Ian Battaglia's interview with @jaybossrubin.bsky.social is out now. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/06/17/t...

Congratulations Jay 🎉🥳

And subscribe to The Hopkins Review for @jaybossrubin.bsky.social’s translation of @koimolove.bsky.social’s speculative fiction, forthcoming later this summer in THR 18.3! hopkinsreview.com/shop

Happy pub day to @jaybossrubin.bsky.social, whose translation of Euphrase Kezilahabi’s ROSE MISTIKA is out today from @yalepress.bsky.social! Read a chapter of this “controversial Swahili classic” in The Hopkins Review 16.2 on @projectmuse.bsky.social @hopkinspress.bsky.social, then get the book!

It's pub day for Rosa Mistika—and here is a lengthy interview about the novel (and much else!) with @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social chireviewofbooks.com/2025/06/17/t...

My English translation of the Swahili novel ROSA MISTIKA, by Euphrase Kezilahabi, comes out tomorrow. Here's a Q+A about the book, its banning, genre + more with the fine folks at @yalepress.bsky.social yalebooks.yale.edu/2025/06/16/r...