It started with people waking up in the middle of the night, unable to move, convinced something was in the room with them. Then the same stories began turning up in other houses, other villages, told in different voices but with the same unease behind them.

In Zanzibar, this became known as Popobawa. What followed wasn't just rumor, but weeks and months of people trying to make sense of something nobody could explain and nobody could dismiss. Some called it fear. Some called it something else.

This book follows the stories as they were told at the time, by witnesses, by newspapers, and by those trying to explain what was happening while it was still unfolding.

Popobawa sits where what people lived through and what anyone can prove have never quite met.