Jay Boss Rubin

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

Registration link to attend via Zoom: www.eventbrite.com/e/celebratin...

Jay Boss Rubin on Rosa Mistika with Annmarie Drury | Center for the Art of Translation | Two Lines Press City Lights welcomes Jay Boss Rubin to read from his translation of Rosa Mistika by Euphrase Kezilahabi, a banned Swahili classic finally in English.

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...

Witness of Nina Mvungi and Other Stories - Hanging Loose Press Winner of the 2025 Loose Translation Award, a collaboration between CUNY Queens and Hanging Loose Press.

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 🥳

Poster for a reading at Dove & Hudson Used Books in Albany, NY.

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

Tennis Courterly Is a Newsletter Trying to Turn Portland into “Tennis City, USA” Portland might not have professional tournaments or world-class tennis academies, and many of the city’s public courts have seen better days. But Portlander Tyler Pell sees potential in the city’s com...

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...

Big thanks to both @citylightsbooks.bsky.social and @catranslation.org for putting on this event.

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...

What We’re Reading Reviews of notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

@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.

Practicing Dying by Rebecca Suzuki - The Los Angeles Review Both my grandparents died very young.  My mother thinks it’s because my grandfather would chain smoke in the greenhouse, creating a literal greenhouse effect where my grandmother constantly took in th...

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...

Swahili-English translator Jay Boss Rubin (left) and author Esther Karin Mngodo (right).

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

Today marks Rodrigo Urquiola Flores's debut in English and Shaina Brassard's debut publication as a literary translator. Hats off all around!!

I had the pleasure of getting to know these two at @artomi.bsky.social's Translation Lab 2024. Rodrigo is an amazing + prodigious writer from La Paz, Bolivia, and Shaina—enormously talented in her own right—is the perfect translator for his work.

La Venezolana - Asymptote I had just fifty bolivianos in my wallet. I walked around the Plaza Murillo looking for a story. Work had been scarce the last few weeks—I generally did editing and proofreading projects or reso...

"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...

The Watchlist: June 2025 - Words Without Borders Tobias Carroll on the June titles in translation you won't want to miss, from Peru, Tanzania, Tibet, and more.

@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.

The Watchlist: June 2025 - Words Without Borders Tobias Carroll on the June titles in translation you won't want to miss, from Peru, Tanzania, Tibet, and more.

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

Briefly Noted Book Reviews Short reviews of recent releases.

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/

Asante sana kwa kusambaza habari za tafsiri ya Kiingereza ya Rosa Mistika. I am honored!

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

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!