About Haneen
We chose the Arabic word ‘haneen’ not just for its poeticism, but for its uniquely slippery nature and versatility of meaning. It denotes nostalgia, memory, yearning and longing for a return to a place, an experience, an idea or a time. It is often said to be ‘untranslatable’, as there is no singular word in English that captures its plurality in quite the same way. Acknowledging each culture’s set of unique definitions and different forms of understanding is what this magazine encourages and represents. Nevertheless, by moving away from ideas of untranslatability and cultural/linguistic isolation, our platform embraces translation and intercultural dialogue with all the friction that this entails.
HA · NEEN
/ħaˈniːn/ — noun, Arabic حنين
From the root ح-ن-ن (h-n-n): to feel longing, tenderness, compassion. Related to حنان (ḥanān): unconditional love. And to أنين (anīn): a soft, sustained moan of grief or yearning.
This journal is a memory box for all of your reflections, inspirations, images and fragments that can come alive through translation. The act of sharing a glimpse into your world on this platform will give power to those experiences and allow them to keep their allure.
Haneen is an independent literary and visual platform. We welcome multilingual and multimedia forms of artistic expression and we always search for the creative in you: a unique and resilient artist. We reject any kind of discrimination, racism or hate speech.
We accept poetry, fiction & prose, essay & criticism, travel & reportage, opinion & argument, film & book review, photography, visual art, short films, audio and podcasts. Please refer to our submission section for specific information on word count/running time, portfolio, format, writing, languages and translation. We advise our contributors to read our issues to get a sense of what we tend to publish. We are happy to collaborate through open calls, but generally we prefer to receive your work after calls for submissions.
Haneen is a home for your writing, photographs, artwork, films. We hope that it is a place where you can come back to either as a contributor or a reader, reliving the essence of memories published on our website.
Who We Are
Editor-in-Chief & Founder
Maja Krych
Maja is a Polish writer, journalist, photographer, editor, and postgraduate researcher. Her work entails English, French, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Russian cultural as well as linguistic contexts. She is fascinated with narratives that hold our memories, the poetry of everyday life and human connection, essays on decolonial thought and societal frictions, and the dialogue between theatre, literature, cinema, and other artistic forms.
Join us and share your own pieces of archiving.
Your story has been waiting.
We welcome poetry, prose, essays, film, photography and more. See our submission guidelines for formats and languages.
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