Not a lot is known about Rey Rosa's professional life until after he emigrated to New York after finishing his studies in Guatemala. Rey Rosa has based many of his writings and stories on legends and myths that are indigenous to Latin American as well as North Africa. Out of all of his works there have only been three that have appeared in the English language which include; "The Path Doubles Back," "Dust on her Tongue," and "The Beggar's Knife." Along with his longer writings, he has also written a number of short stories that have been printed in college-level text books such as "Worlds of Fiction, Second edition" By Roberta Rubenstein and Charles R. Larson. A few of these short stories include "The Proof," and "The Good Cripple." Many of Rey Rosa's works have been translated into seven languages. In the early 1980s Rey Rosa went to Morocco and became a literary protege of American expatriate writer Paul Bowles, who later translated several of Rey Rosa's works into English. When Bowles died in 1999, Rey Rosa became executor of his literature works.

Along with writing novels and short stories, Rodrigo Rosa has created and directed a number of feature films. His first film was "What Sebastian Dreamt," which runs 83 minutes long and was based from his own novel. His film was first premièred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah in 2004 and has also been shown at the Berlin Film Festival. Because of his works in literature and film, Rosa won Guatemala's National Prize in Literature named after Miguel Asturias who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967.

Many of Rosa's texts have been translated into other languages. Some of these languages include English, Italian, German, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, and Japanese.