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Karim Alrawi () is a writer born in Alexandria, Egypt. He has taught at universities in the UK, Egypt, US and Canada. He was an International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa and taught creative writing at the university's International Writing Program.
While in the UK, he was active in the anti-racist movement, writing for publications including those of the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism and, in 1984, was a speaker at the Greater London Council'
/ref> In 2003, he testified before the US Congress arguing for strengthening civil society institutions and supporting independent media in the Middle East and North Africa.Internews Middle East director testifies before U.S. Congress, ICFJ.org international Journalists' network, http://ijnet.org/opportunities/internews-middle-east-director-testifies-us-congress He was also a delegate to Madrid+15 conference in 2007 to develop a framework for a two-state solution, laying the groundwork for the Annapolis Conference between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
In Egypt he was deputy secretary general and foreign press spokesperson for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and president of Egyptian Pen (the local branch of the international writer's organization) from 1992 to 1994 replacing Mursi Saad El-Din."Death on the Nile" Index on Censorship, London, May/June 1994 He was followed in the position by novelist Gamal El-Ghitani.
He was in Egypt during the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011–2013.Patrick Martin, "After the trial, the battle begins", Globe and Mail, Canada, August 3, 2011 After the return of military rule, Alrawi was among 190 Egyptian human rights and civil society activists charged by Egyptian State Security under case 173–2011.قاىمة المنظمات المتهمة بالتمويل الاجنبي” ,آحمد شلبي ومحمد منصور", Almasry Alyoum, المصري اليوم, Egypt, March 20, 2016, http://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/913796 The charges pertained to his training journalists in media ethics and use of the internet, purportedly a contributory factor to the Arab Spring 2011 uprising. On December 20, 2018, an Egyptian court dismissed the charges. A decision confirmed by the court of appeal on December 4, 2020. On March 20, 2024, an investigative judge declared the case closed.
In the UK, he was Literary Manager of the Theatre Royal Stratford East and later Resident Writer at the Royal Court Theatre in Central London. He served on the Arts Council of Great Britain's Drama Panel and the Greater London Arts Council. On returning to Egypt he taught in the theatre department of the American University in Cairo. In Egypt his plays were banned by the state censor.Karim Alrawi, "Pop Goes the Censor", Writer's Blog, June 3, 2011, http://www.karimalrawi.com/writer/Writers_Blog/Entries/2011/6/3_Pop_goes_the_Censor.html "The still, small voice within Egypt" Index on Censorship, London, February 1992 He was later arrested and detained for interrogation by Egyptian State Security for his work with the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR)."Fear of the Word." Media Guardian, The Guardian newspaper, London, December 20, 1993 In 1993, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya issued a fatwa against him, citing his defence of the assassinated writer Farag Foda and stating that "the defence of an apostate is proof of apostasy". The fatwa was subsequently withdrawn after the intervention of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.Tous les Rushdie du monde, L'
He went to the United States as a Fulbright International Scholar"Karim Alrawi Biography"
He has received writer's awards from the Arts Council of Great Britain and from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Alrawi's play Blind Edge, produced by the Old Vic Theatre, was staged at the Commonwealth Institute in London as part of the Festival of Asia, while his play Aliens won the Festival of Asia & Capital Radio'
Theatres Alrawi wrote plays for included Royal Court Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Joint Stock, The Old Red Lion Theatre, Soho Theatre, M6 Theatre, Half Moon Theatre, Newcastle Playhouse, the Old Vic Theatre, London, Liverpool Playhouse, Theatre Royal, York, and the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.Karim Alrawi, Guide to Plays, doollee.com, http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsA/alrawi-karim.html
Autobis al Intikhabat (The Election Bus), a satire on the Egyptian electoral system and Mudun Gha'iba (Absent Cities) about the destruction of Arab cities by war were two full-length plays that were to be produced with a cast of students from AUC. Alrawi and his actors were denied access to the Wallace theatre during the final days of rehearsals resulting in cancellation of the performances.
The Unbroken Heart a play based on the life of the blues singer Ethel Waters was first performed at the Fisher Theatre in Iowa before touring nationally.Joe Pollack, "Busy Theatre Calendar", St. Louis Post, Missouri, USA, September 6, 1992Peter Lennon, "Speaking out in a volatile climate", The Guardian, UK, May 28, 1994 His plays for MBT included A Gift of Glory,George Bullard, "Play shows Detroit as an art sanctuary", Detroit News, March 6, 1999, about the Mexican artist Diego Rivera and the Ford family; Chagall's Arabian Nights,Celia Wren, "I Dream of Genie", American Theatre magazine, volume 17, issue 4, April 2000, a story of Marc Chagall's painting of the Arabian Nights and Killing Time,Michael Margolin, "Killing Time questions living without quality of life", Detroit News, February 16, 2001, a play about physician assisted suicide. He also wrote plays that toured local schools and ran theatre workshops for disadvantaged children in South-East Michigan.Meadow Brook Theatre Archives, Kresge Library, http://library.oakland.edu/information/departments/archives/Meadowbrooktheatre.html
His play Sarajevo about the Bosnian war was given a workshop production at MBT and the Shenandoah Arts Theatre. The play Sugar Candy was given a staged reading at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis.
PatagoniaChris Dafoe, "Sled among top Jessie nominees", Globe and Mail, May 17, 1997 a play about torture and resistance was first performed by Ruby Slippers Theatre in Vancouver, Canada. Across The Morne a play for two actors and dogs, set in Newfoundland, was given a staged reading at the Playwrights' Theatre Centre, Vancouver, Canada.
Deep Cut, a play set on the American Gulf Islands about cultural conflict and political and personal expediency, was staged at La MaMa ETCNelson Pressley, "Deep Cut needs a sharper production", Washington Times, April 19, 1996 in New York as well as by Golden Thread Theatre in San Francisco and Washington, DC.Rashad Rida, "From Cultural Authenticity to Social Relevance: The plays of Amin al-Rihanni, Khalil Gibran and Karim Alrawi." Colors of Enchantment, Ed. Sherifa Zuhur American University in Cairo Press, 2010
The Girl Who Lost Her Smile was winner of Parents Magazine Gold Award 2002 and was a finalist for the Kentucky Bluegrass Book Award (Kentucky Students'
His picture book The Mouse Who Saved Egypt was listed for the People's Prize in the UK.
He also authored a children's literary cookbook: Arab Fairytale Feast that was shortlisted for the Forest of Reading Children'
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where he had residencies at a number of theatres including Meadow Brook Theatre (MBT) in Michigan, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kennedy Centre, Washington DC, and LaMama, New York."Fifty Years of Meadow Brook Theatre", Arcadia Publishing, July 2015 He has written and edited several international publications and was Editor in Chief of Arabica Magazine magazine,Lama Bakri, "Arab-American magazine draws national readership", Detroit News, March 23, 2000, the leading nationally distributed Arab-American publicationJim Dulzo, "Arabica magazine finds lucrative niche", Detroit News, December 20, 2000, with an independently certified readership of over 100,000 readers."Arabica magazine Subscriber Profile", John Zogby International, client report, October 2000 He supervised EU, US and Canadian government funded media training programs in North Africa and South Asia.Government of Canada, Radio Rabi'ah Balkhi gives women a voice in Afghanistan, http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/stories-reportages/womenradio-radiofemmes.aspx He was Executive Director of the US-Arab Economic Forum and a member of the Canadian delegation led by Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew to the OECD conference on Good Governance in the Arab World,Good Governance for Development in the Arab Countries, http://www.oecd.org/mena/governance/34945764.pdf as well as a member of the UNDP's Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (, 1999–2005) and Communications Advisor and Manager of External Affairs for the Middle East and North Africa for the World Bank in Washington, DC.Karim Alrawi, "Media Development (initiative in support of civil society in Iraq)," United Nations Development Programme, July 2004, http://www.iq.undp.org/UploadedFiles/Projects/8f5f4742-6952-4ac1-9775-eb988e0579a3.pdf
Awards
Alrawi's fiction, plays and productions have received several awards including:
British plays
Alrawi's first full-length play Migrations was produced at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and his second play A Colder Climate was produced at the Royal Court Theatre in Central London. It was followed by three plays, Fire in the Lake, A Child in the Heart and Promised Land for Joint Stock Theatre, then one of Britain's major touring companies.Ritchie, R. (ed), "The Joint Stock Book: Making of a Theatre Collective," Methuen, London, 1987, All three plays provoked controversy at the time of performance.Joyce Devlin, "Joint Stock: From Colorless Company to Company of Color." Theatre Topics Journal, Johns Hopkins University Press, March 1991, Sara Freeman, "Writing the History of an Alternative Theatre Company: Mythology and the Last Years of Joint Stock." Theatre Survey 47:1, American Society for Theatre Research, May 2006, As Carol Woddis noted about Child in the Heart, "this almost messianic piece about the desperate pain of loss of roots and, in the truly biblical sense, tribal identity, refuses to let its audience off the hook."Carol Woddis, '"Child in the Heart, play review." City Limits magazine, London, April 21, 1988 Fire in the Lake was awarded an Edinburgh Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Crossing the Water a play about the British in Egypt and the Suez War was given a stage reading at the ICA in London before being produced at the American University in Cairo's Jamil Center despite a banning order by the Egyptian state censor.Walter Eysselinck, "Identity and Anxiety in the Plays of Karim Alrawi." Theatre Workshop Paper, American University in Cairo, 1991
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Arabic plays
In Egypt, Alrawi taught at the theatre department of the American University in Cairo (AUC).Karim Alrawi interview, Dramatists Guild Quarterly, Spring 1994, http://www.karimalrawi.com/writer/Interview.html His first serious run-in with the state censor was when his play Crossing the Water was banned and he was summoned to give an account of himself to the censor's office."No Queens on the Nile." The Guardian newspaper, London, July 27, 1990 Later that year, as a response to the censor, he adapted The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, setting it in contemporary Egypt. It was staged at the Wallace Theatre of AUC in central Cairo."The Three Sisters", American University in Cairo, http://www.aucegypt.edu/huss/pva/theater/archive/Pages/ThreeSisters.aspx Also, Alrawi wrote four stage plays in Arabic two of which were staged at the Wallace Theatre. Madinate el Salam (City of Peace) is a retelling of the life of the Sufi poet Mansour al-Hallaj who was executed in tenth century Baghdad on charges of heresy. The play was produced twice, both times after being refused a license by the state censor that led to threats of arrest of Alrawi by state security. The second produced play, Al-Bayt al Mahgour (The Abandoned House) was about sexual exploitation and its roots in Egypt's history of class privilege. The production of the plays, despite being denied rehearsal and production licenses by the state censor, was a contributory cause to Alrawi's later arrest and interrogation."Kindest regards: you're banned." Index on Censorship, London, February 1992
North American plays
Karim Alrawi was resident writer at a number of institutions, including Iowa State University, Pennsylvania State University, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Oakland University and at Meadow Brook Theatre (MBT) in Michigan.Thom Foxlee & Maryann Foxlee, "Fifty Years of Meadow Brook Theatre"
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Children's fiction
Alrawi has written two children's picture books: The Girl Who Lost Her Smile and The Mouse Who Saved Egypt.
/ref> It was staged and performed as a children's play in the UK by Tutti Frutti Theatre and York Theatre Royal,Tutti Frutti return with enchanting children's play, York Theatre Royal, http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/cgi/news/news.cgi?t=template&a=209 and in the United States by Golden Thread Theatre.
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Adult fiction
Alrawi's novel Book of Sands, subtitled a novel of the Arab uprising, was published by HarperCollins in the Fall of 2015. The novel won the inaugural HarperCollins Publishers Prize for Best New Fiction.Karim Alrawi wins inaugural Prize for Best New Fiction, "Quill & Quire"
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Other productions
Karim Alrawi has written for BBC radio and television, as well as for Channel 4 television in the UK.
External links
Categories: Www.karimalrawi.com Official, 1952 Births, Living People, Writers From Alexandria, 21st-century Canadian Dramatists And Playwrights, 21st-century English Novelists, 21st-century Canadian Novelists, Alumni Of University College London, Alumni Of The University Of London, Alumni Of The University Of Manchester, Canadian Children's Writers, Canadian Male Novelists, Canadian Male Dramatists And Playwrights, Canadian Human Rights Activists, Egyptian Human Rights Activists, English Male Novelists, English Children's Writers, English Dramatists And Playwrights, University Of British Columbia Alumni, International Writing Program Alumni, 21st-century Canadian Male Writers
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