Dear friends
Allow me to begin by saluting the International Publishers Association for convening this outstanding conference, and by expressing my deepest gratitude to the organizers for awarding El Maraya the 2026 Voltaire Prize.
We are profoundly honored by this recognition, and we can only hope to prove worthy of the trust and confidence it represents.
El Maraya was founded in 2016 with a simple but ambitious mission: to provide a platform for young voices emerging from Egypt’s new democratic and liberal currents, and for critical perspectives that often struggle to find space within dominant intellectual and political discourse.
A few years earlier, in 2011, Egypt witnessed a mass popular revolution that raised the demands of bread, freedom, and social justice. That moment was preceded by a decade of political activism and civic mobilization in support of democracy and human rights.
Together, these years gave rise to a new generation of writers, researchers, and public intellectuals who sought to challenge established assumptions, question inherited certainties, and imagine new democratic possibilities for their society.
After 2013, however, the popular momentum that had carried those aspirations began to recede. The spaces available for expression gradually narrowed for a generation that had dreamed of democracy and political change. Opportunities for independent and critical voices diminished, and publishing ideas that diverged from prevailing narratives became increasingly difficult.
It was in this context that El Maraya was born: as a cultural institution dedicated to building bridges with writers, researchers, and intellectuals associated with democratic currents—particularly younger generations—and connecting them to a wider community of readers. Our aim was to help carve out a new space for critical and emancipatory knowledge within a social and intellectual environment often marked by conservatism, rigidity, and suspicion toward dissenting views.
Over the past decade, El Maraya has published dozens of books that revisit and reinterpret the political, social, economic, and cultural history of modern Egypt through new perspectives and previously overlooked realities. We have also published works addressing some of the most pressing issues affecting the daily lives of Egyptians, including inflation, poverty, education, healthcare, housing, and urban development.
At the same time, we have sought to amplify voices that are too often marginalized, publishing books that foreground the experiences and perspectives of women, religious minorities, and other underrepresented communities. We have also produced works examining contemporary regional and international politics, the transformations of the Palestinian cause, and the changing forms of imperial power in the modern world.
Alongside these efforts, we have published dozens of literary works by emerging writers whose voices are bold, original, and experimental, yet who often have limited access to publishing opportunities.
Because El Maraya is a diverse cultural institution, our work extends beyond books alone. Guided by the same principles, we publish an online journal of cultural studies, produce documentary films, organize training programs, and create podcast series that seek to broaden access to critical knowledge and public debate.
Over time, El Maraya has succeeded in building a wide community of readers and followers. Yet the nature of our cultural mission—and the critical perspectives reflected in our publications—has exposed us to numerous institutional pressures that have challenged our work from the very beginning and continue to do so today.
Despite these ongoing pressures, we remain committed to our mission and determined to carry it forward.
We remain committed to the right of people to knowledge, and to the right of writers and researchers to express their ideas freely.
We remain determined to produce emancipatory visions and critical forms of knowledge that open new horizons for free thought, and that cultivate intellectual openness in the face of intolerance, dogmatism, and fear of difference.
Above all, we remain faithful to the democratic dream from which we began. We are determined to preserve it, renew it, and help rebuild it- hopeful that it may one day lead us toward a freer, more just, and more humane world.
Thank you.