Egyptian publisher Yehia Fekry awarded the 2026 International Publishers Association’s Prix Voltaire at the award ceremony of the 35th International Publishers Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox

“Publishing is a profession for people of growth, bravery, and responsibility.”

Tonight at an award ceremony at the International Publishers Association Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Yehia Fekry, co-founder and CEO of El Maraya for Arts & Culture in Cairo was awarded this year’s Prix Voltaire for continuing to fearlessly publish amid raids of their offices, banning from book fairs, and arrests of staff. “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. Over time, El Maraya has succeeded in building a wide community of readers and followers,” said Fekry in his acceptance speech.

“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.”

In addition to the annual Prix Voltaire Award, the IPA also posthumously honored Mohamed Hashem, the courageous independent Egyptian publisher and founder of Merit Publishing House, with a Prix Voltaire Special Award.

Hashem was dedicated to freedom of expression and to promoting emerging writers and marginalized voices in the Arab world since 1998. A vocal anti-authoritarian activist, Hashem co-founded the Kefaya Movement in 2004 and the Writers and Artists for Change Movement in 2005, which he hosted at Merit, later opening the publishing house into a permanent headquarters for the January 25th Revolution of 2011, providing demonstrators with crucial aid.

In 2011, Olivia Snaije interviewed Hashem for Publishing Perspectives about the company’s mission to “focus on freedom.”

“It’s not about the money we make but the ideas we sell. These days a book that doesn’t speak about freedom is worthless,” said Hashem in the interview.

At tonight’s event, Hashem’s daughter, Mirette Hashem accepted the award honoring her father, saying, “My father dedicated his life to the belief that books are the cornerstone of a free and enlightened society. As a publisher, he was a staunch defender of freedom of expression, consistently advocating for the right to think, write, and publish without fear in Egypt. He sacrificed much to protect these values, always believing that freedom of expression is essential to a nation’s progress.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Prix Voltaire which seeks to honor individuals, groups or organizations who have published controversial works amid pressure, threats, intimidation or harassment from governments, other authorities or private interests.

Prior to the award ceremony, Trasvin Jittidecharak of Silkworm Books and Secretary General of the ASEAN Book Publishers Association moderated a panel featuring three past Prix Voltaire honorees – Rasha Al Ameer, Writer and Publisher, Dar al-Jadeed (Lebanon); Khaled Lotfy, Egyptian Publisher, Foundear Tanmia Bookstores (Egypt); and Nadia Kandrusevich, Translator and Publisher, Founder of Koska (Belarus) – to talk about what the prize meant to them, emphasized the importance of courage, justice, and technology’s dual role in both enabling and repressing publishing, and shared some of the similarities between their unique experiences.

“We all can learn a lesson from our situation that freedom to publish can never be taken for granted,” said Kandrusevich. “You can’t wait for the perfect conditions. Act now and don’t be afraid to get local or niche support, build bridges, build technologies.”