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 spéciale 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.