Karim Alrawi

Who is Karim Alrawi?

Karim Alrawi is a writer born in Alexandria, Egypt. His family emigrated to England then to Canada. Alrawi graduated from University College London and the University of Manchester, England. He gained an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and held a Fellowship in Writing at the University of Iowa, where he was resident writer at its International Writing Program.

In the UK, after his first full length stage play Migrations won the prestigious John Whiting Award he became Literary Manager of the Theatre Royal Stratford East and later Resident Writer at the Royal Court Theatre in Central London. In 1988 he moved to Egypt and taught in the theatre department of the American University in Cairo. In 1990 his plays were banned by the Egyptian state censor. Three years later he was arrested and detained for interrogation by Egyptian State Security about his writings and for his work with the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights. He later moved to the United States where he was Writer in Residence at Meadow Brook Theatre in Michigan. He was Editor in Chief of ARABICA magazine, the leading nationally distributed Arab-American publication with a certified readership of over 100,000 readers. During an almost ten-year hiatus from creative writing, Alrawi worked for aid and development agencies including the Canadian Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society, IMPACS, where he was Director of International Programs, later as executive director of the US-Arab Economic Forum and the World Bank where he was Communications Advisor and Manager of External Affairs for the Middle East and North Africa working with civil society organizations and the media.