Rowayat

Literary journal platforming SWANA writers & experiences. Also dba Grotte Des Merveilles / Cave of Wonders.

Rowayat روايات (transliterated riwayat, rewayat) is the popular plural word in Arabic for novels. However, we chose this name to reflect all types of creative writing and storytelling. Rowayat launched in 2012 as a literary journal emerging from Egypt, publishing fiction, poetry, drama, and a range of works. We also published a children’s issue, Rowayat Gemeza, and a French issue, Édition spécial

e de Rowayat en français. Since 2015, our focus has been Rowayat’s publishing arm, which has published over ten books. We’ve also recently relaunched Rowayat as a global, primarily online platform, featuring all the pieces from our previously printed issues. Rowayat believes in building community through storytelling in all its forms, enabling multiple voices to be heard to counter the era of injustice we now live in, ever so dominated by corpocracy, securitization, and military expansionism. Under this repressive reality, we choose writing as our means of resistance, inspired by feminists of colour who paved the way for feminist transnational solidarity through love, joy, and acceptance. Rowayat is seeking original writing for our upcoming online publications. Submission categories are fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, flash fiction, comics, art, reviews and interviews – in English, French or Arabic in translation. Contributors/Volunteers do not need to identify as Arab/SWANA in descent, provided their work is in dialogue with the transnational social realities of the Afro/Arab regions and their diaspora communities. Contributors/Volunteers may also decide to expand this reality altogether. Please note that we accept submissions from all Indigenous Peoples of Canada from across Turtle Island, as we are located on the unceded Indigenous lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka/Mohawk Nation, a historic place for gathering and trade for many First Nations. These lands and Indigenous Peoples have a history and legacy that is long and deep, and on which there have now been non-Indigenous settlers for more than 375 years.

11/04/2024

Mona Kareem in Another Room to Live In, translated by Sara Elkamel

#🇵🇸 #🇸🇾 #🇱🇧

10/27/2024

Deadline October 31st - Submit Now to Issue 10: Borders https://rowayat.org/issue-10-borders/ https://rowayat.submittable.com/submit/

10/26/2024

Last days to submit to issue 10: Borders https://rowayat.submittable.com/submit/

Rowayat seeks original writing for upcoming online publications. Submission categories are Fiction, CNF, Poetry, Flash Fiction, Comics, Art, Reviews and Interviews - in English or French or Arabic in translation. Contributors do not need to identify as Arab/SWANA descent, provided their work is in d...

10/21/2024

Submit from September 15th-October 31st 2024 Issue 10 of Rowayat explores “borders” in all their forms: from the…

10/21/2024

Submit to Issue 10:Borders https://rowayat.org/issue-10-borders/ Deadline October 31st

Submit from September 15th-October 31st 2024 Issue 10 of Rowayat explores “borders” in all their forms: from the…

10/17/2024

Read Rowayat's Issue 10 Managing Editor's poem published in Ekstasis Magazine

Send a message to learn more

10/17/2024

Wael Almahdi

10/15/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1F3nmgFujg/

يلا نخلي أطفالنا يستمتعوا بورشة حكي مختلفة مع حتحت وقرقر! جيلان عباس هتاخدهم في رحلة خيالية مليانة حكايات ممتعة وضحك. مستنيينكم يوم الجمعة ١٨ أكتوبر الساعة ٢ في ديوان مصر الجديدة. فرصة حلوة عشان الأطفال يعيشوا تجربة حكي مميزة ويكونوا ذكريات جديدة. ما تفوتوش الفرصة!

10/15/2024

10/07/2024

We are open for Submissions for Issue #10: Borders
September 15th-October 31st 2024

Writers may submit poems or prose responding directly or indirectly to the issue’s BORDERS theme.
Guest Editors almahdi.writer

https://rowayat.org/submit/

10/07/2024

We are open for Submissions for Issue #10: Borders

September 15th-October 31st 2024

Issue 10 of Rowayat explores “borders” in all their forms: from the physical, heavily guarded borders that divide the earth, to the intangible but equally real psychological, cultural, and socio-economic borders that delineate our interior and exterior worlds. In our upcoming issue, we delve into the lines that shape and limit the human experience, challenging and redefining them through the lens of verse.

Submit prose and poems that reflect your best-polished work. We’re looking for immediate, fresh writing that reflects your deepest experiences of borders and how they affect your view of the world. We seek well-crafted poems, prose and nonfiction that attempt to reappropriate the hardest borders, be they cultural, linguistic, or bureaucratic in nature.

Writers may submit poems or prose responding directly to the issue’s BORDERS theme as a whole. https://rowayat.org/submit/

Address

Montreal, QC

Website

https://www.rowayat.org/

Alerts

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Contact The Business

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Videos

Ibrahim Fawzy, Editorial Assistant

Meet Ibrahim Fawzy, our Editorial Assistant. He’s looking forward to your submissions at: rowayat.org/submit

Meet Fatima Elkalay, Poetry Editor for Issue #8

Here's what Fatima ElKalay believes is important about the power of words. Submit to this collective: https://rowayat.org/submit/

Building literary community

Managing Editor, Rahat Kurd, tells us what she’s most excited to see in your submissions to Issue #8. Find the guidelines and enter your pieces: https://rowayat.org/submit/

Shortcuts

Our Story

Rowayat is the first English Language Literary Journal in Egypt. We are groundbreaking, and hope to be the Paris Review/Granta of Egypt. Our vision is to create a space where high quality literary work can be read and be accessible. A space for both emerging and established writers, who dream and write in English. This journal includes Egyptians around the world as well as foreign residents. If we had an association it would be called the Egyptian English Fiction Writers Association, and this would be its journal. Through our website we are highlighting the "Hybrid" writer, who has chosen a second language for creativity, whether it be French, German, Greek or Hebrew. Rowayat is a window into the diversity of talent and creativity that has always come out of Egypt. Each issue contains a diversity of short stories, flash fiction, poetry, memoir, travel literature, creative writing lessons, Arabic in translation, as well as a tribute to an Arab country. Fiction is where there are no shackles against opinions, where freedom exists in its purest form. There is no lobbying, there is no compromise. Fiction is where -Cavafy (born & raised in Egypt) told us it's about the journey not the destination. Through fiction and art, Rowayat aims to cross boundaries, bring us closer, unite the past, present and future writers emerging and resurrecting from Egypt. We are here, we've always been, we shall be, ever present. The budding writers of the student competition are an insight into our future. In Issue 1: the tribute to Ahmed Fouad Negm, is a window into contemporary Egypt. Jacqueline Kahanoff into our past. You can't understand Egypt or Egyptians from newspaper headlines, but you can come into their homes, and hearts through their writers. Welcome to Egypt, Welcome to Rowayat. To submit, please e-mail [email protected] The first issue of Rowayat is currently available at: Diwan Bookstores Darb 16/17 Booklet Women's Association Sufi Bikya Bookspot CSA Diwan Falak Townhouse AUC Press El-Khayat Bookstores Adam Bookstore Mizan Art Cafe Egyptian American Book Centre El-Ahram Distributors (Select Kiosks)