Decades of Fire: A Special Issue on Middle East and North Africa: April 2021-Nov 1 2021

Guest-Editor Huda Fakhreddine

The Michigan Quarterly Review is seeking contributions to a special issue on the Middle East and North Africa focused on the region’s political, social, and cultural transformations in the last three decades. In the early 1990’s as the Cold War was coming to an end, the U.S. launched a “new world order” with Desert Storm, a war on the Republic of Iraq which had earlier attempted to annex the State of Kuwait. With unchecked American hegemony in the region and with American troops on the ground, the last three decades saw the region’s nation states weakening, their social fabrics fraying, and their economies shrinking. Furthermore, this same time period also saw a steep rise in radical fundamentalism and terrorism, revolutions and anti-revolutions, as well as an enormous increase in the region’s refugee populations. Michigan Quarterly Review has planned this special issue to examine a period of significant social change in the Middle East and North Africa and to present the voices of the region’s writers, thinkers, and artists as they grapple with this era and its future ramifications for their people and their world.

For this special issue of MQR we are seeking articles, essays, memoirs, fiction and poetry in English translation that examine the impact the multiple tensions and conflicts of the last three decades have had on the people of the Middle East and North Africa. And we welcome articles, essays, and literary works that track the various social, cultural, and artistic developments and movements that have emerged in the region during this period.

We also invite translators to send us their pitches for potential prose translations and submissions by sending texts in Arabic accompanied by a 300-word introduction/rationale to mqr@umich.edu with the subject line “Decades of Fire Pitch.” If Submittable is not accessible to you for any reason please send us an email and we will arrange an alternative means of submission. The issue will be published in April of 2022.

Maximum length for articles, essays and works of fiction is 5,000 words. Poetry submissions must not exceed 10 pages.

General Submissions for the Print Journal: Open Aug 1-Nov 1

Submissions for the print journal will be accepted from January 15 to April 1 and August 1 to November 1. Average turnaround time is six months, but we may take longer and ask that you do not query us until a year has passed.

• Simultaneous submissions are permitted. Please notify us immediately via Submittable if work is accepted elsewhere.
• Please do not submit previously published work, including work published on a personal website.
• Writers are advised to inspect a back copy of the journal before submitting work.
• Previous contributors: please wait one year after your work appears in the journal to submit to us again.
• We ask that you do not contact us about revising your work once it has been submitted.
• MQR is a paying market.

Genre Specifications

Prose submissions: Manuscripts should be double-spaced. 1,500-7,000 words. All stories accepted for publication will be passed on to a judge as finalists for the $2000 Lawrence Prize. There is no additional fee for the prize beyond submission. The Judge for the 2021 Lawrence prize is Julie Buntin.

Poetry submissions: Please submit in between 3-6 poems in one document, not to exceed a total of 12 pages. Poems published in MQR by early career writers (those who have not yet published a full-length collection) will be considered for the Page Davidson Clayton Prize. 

Translations: Please submit translations in the appropriate genre. Please include biographical information for both the author and translator.

MQR Online: Submit author interviews and book reviews. Submissions should not be longer than 3,000 words.

MQR accepts mailed submissions from incarcerated individuals. Other submissions via mail, email, or fax cannot be accepted and will not be read.  If you are a writer for whom Submittable is not accessible please email us at mqr@umich.edu for information on how to submit.