Prison of Burrel in the District of Mat region, isolated and under constant surveillance, she spent the following next 19 years of her life in internment in the town of Rrëshen, Northern Albania, where she had to work as a streetsweeper. She was never allowed to resume her writing. She died in August 1983, in extreme poverty, after a swift battle with cancer. Publications She had, at the age of twenty-four, indeed already published an initial 80-page collection of ten youthful prose tales in her native Gjirokastrian dialect: As my old mother tells me (), Tirana, 1941. This historic collection, strongly inspired by Tosk folklore and by the day-by-day struggles of women of Gjirokastër, is thought to be the first work of literature ever written and published by a woman in Albania. Their value consists of the very lively dialect of Gjirokastër and the prevailing mores of the region. Kokalari called the book, "the mirror of a world gone by, the path of transition from girlhood with its melodies and the first years of marriage to the world of the grown woman, once again bound by the heavy chains of slavery to patriarchal fanaticism." In mid 1943 Musine together with Nexhmije Xhuglini Hoxha founded the magazine for women "Shqiptarja e Re". This magazine continued throughout the dictatorship and was the first avenue for women stories after Albanian's liberation and it was published by Albanian United Women organisation chaired by Nexhimije Hoxha from 1946-1952. With Musine's craft and talent as a writer enabled it's publishing whilst she was arrested and during her trial in June 1946 this very magazine called her a terrorist and appealed to "People's Justice" to pass on Musine Kokalari the heaviest punishment. Three years later, despite the vicissitudes of World War II, Kokalari now twenty-seven, was able to publish a longer collection of short stories and sketches entitled How life swayed (), Tirana, 1944, a total of 348-pages which established her—ever so briefly—as a writer of substance. A third volume of her folksy tales was entitled Around the Hearth (), Tirana, 1944. Recognition Kokalari was one of the first 30 imprisoned writers to be listed in 1960 by the Committee of the Three (precursor of International PEN). In 1993 Kokalari was posthumously declared a Martyr of Democracy by the President of Albania and a school in Tirana now bears her name. See also Sevasti Qiriazi Parashqevi Qiriazi