Agafay Books is named after the Agafay Desert in Morocco, a place of stunning natural beauty and rich cultural heritage. The desert represents a vast, uncharted landscape of possibilities, much like the imaginations of children.
Our name reflects our commitment to exploring the limitless potential of young minds through stories that inspire, educate, and entertain. Each book we create is a journey, inviting young readers to discover new ideas, embrace their cultural identity, and ignite their curiosity about the world around them.
At Agafay Books, we help children develop a strong sense of Moroccan identity by celebrating the nation’s rich Afro-Amazigh and Arab heritage while fostering connections to the wider world. Through engaging stories, we inspire cultural pride and nurture curiosity, helping children develop self-awareness, empathy, and a sense of belonging. We equip young readers with emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills to navigate the modern world with confidence, compassion, and a deep understanding of their heritage.
We envision a world where children grow up confident in their cultural identity while embracing diverse global perspectives. By celebrating our heritage, we empower young readers to think critically, solve problems creatively, and act responsibly in their communities. Our stories inspire children to connect deeply with their roots while preparing them to thrive in an interconnected world.
We honor Morocco's unique cultural tapestry, embracing its Afro-Amazigh and Arab influences while preparing children for a globalized future. Through bilingual stories in Arabic and English or French, we help children maintain strong connections to their heritage while developing the linguistic skills needed to engage with diverse communities worldwide. Our books serve as bridges between generations, fostering meaningful dialogue about culture and identity between children and their families, strengthening the bonds of cultural transmission and understanding.
We nurture resilience and imagination by encouraging children to think critically and adapt to change, particularly in today's digital landscape. Our stories guide young readers to thoughtfully engage with both technology and nature, exploring themes of history, identity, ecology, and culture. We emphasize responsible innovation and sustainable thinking, helping children develop the emotional strength and flexibility to embrace new ideas while respecting traditional wisdom.
We prioritize the development of emotional awareness and interpersonal skills. Our stories help children navigate complex emotions and relationships, fostering empathy, self-reflection, and personal growth. Through compelling narratives, we create meaningful connections that deepen children's understanding of themselves and others, inspiring them to approach the world with compassion and responsibility.
Born from urgency: Agafay Books was born from a simple, urgent observation. Moroccan children deserve to see themselves in the books they read.
A mirror that reflects: For too long, a Moroccan child has opened a book hoping to be met, only to find a mirror that reflects nothing back. To belong to the story, she must first imagine herself as someone else.
More than representation: This is not just a question of diversity on a shelf. It is a question of what a child learns to believe about herself and about the world she inhabits.
We publish for Morocco: We create books rooted in Moroccan landscapes, characters, and stories, told on their own terms, in their own voice, without apology.
We write for the child who was never written for: Our books are for the young reader searching for a face like hers, a street like hers, a story that says: you were always worth telling one about.
We carry the stories that were already there: Morocco overflows with extraordinary stories, carried in grandmothers’ voices, in the streets of its medinas, in the resilience of its people. We put them on the page.
Recognition over obligation: Children grow up associating books with school and exams. We believe reading should feel like pleasure, like belonging, never like disappearing into someone else’s world.
Culture told from within: We do not translate, borrow, or soften. We believe Moroccan culture is rich enough, alive enough, to be told entirely on its own terms.
The long view: A child who finds herself in a book does not just read a story. A nation of readers who see themselves clearly does not just dream of a different future. It builds one.
At Agafay Books, we publish books for all ages, from the youngest children to adults, united by a single conviction: Moroccan stories matter, and they deserve to be told with the same literary ambition and quality found anywhere in the world.
For children, we seek stories where the characters, the landscapes, the humour, and the tenderness are recognisably Moroccan. Not as a folkloristic exercise, but as a simple act of dignity. Every child deserves to open a book and find a world that feels like home.
For young adults, we publish works that reconnect with Moroccan history, heritage, and identity. Stories of ancestors, of resilience, of complexity. Because a generation that knows where it comes from is better equipped to decide where it is going.
For adults, we look for works that reflect the full richness of Moroccan life: its contradictions, its beauty, its modernity, and its depth.
Across all our titles, our editorial committee holds every book to a double standard: it must be literarily worthy, and it must be genuinely meaningful for its reader. We do not publish books that talk down to Moroccans, romanticise their culture for foreign eyes, or reproduce familiar storytelling patterns in a new cover.
We publish books that belong here.
At Agafay Books, every manuscript is read by people who have spent their lives in service of literature, education, and the arts.
Our editorial committee brings together three individuals with distinct backgrounds: literary education, pedagogy, and cultural creation. They are united by a single conviction: that Moroccan readers, at every age, deserve books that are literarily worthy, culturally honest, and genuinely meaningful.
For us, publishing is not a commercial act. It is a responsibility.
Born in Marrakech, Khadija El Hanai completed a Diploma of Advanced Studies at the Université de Caen Normandie, specialising in the semiotics of comic theatre, then spent nearly four decades teaching French in Moroccan public schools and at the Institut Français, while running school theatre workshops for young people from 1985 to 2023. Her work in theatre and film earned her awards for best direction, best educational film, and best theatrical work, including a celebrated adaptation of Molière, as well as recognition for a documentary at Cadi Ayyad University. Alongside teaching, she has translated, adapted, and written dramatic texts of her own. As a mother, and fluent in both Arabic and French, she brings this lifelong immersion in language and performance to every manuscript she reads, always attentive to what makes a story culturally alive.
Born in Casablanca, Abdelali Lakhdar studied Mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure in Rabat and Financial Mathematics at the Dresden University of Technology, then taught mathematics at secondary and higher levels in both Morocco and Germany. Moving between these two educational cultures gave him a rare comparative eye for pedagogy, curriculum design, and the role cultural context plays in how children receive and interpret stories. As a father himself, he takes real pleasure in writing for children, and he brings this dual sensibility, Moroccan and German, analytical and culturally attuned, to every manuscript, always asking whether a book speaks meaningfully to children from different backgrounds and traditions.
Born and raised in Paris, Nathalie Bonfils later settled in the Haute-Savoie region near Chamonix, where she immersed herself in mountain culture and created a mobile pottery and modelling workshop, bringing creative expression into schools and retirement homes. During this time she also worked as a press correspondent for Le Dauphiné Libéré and took part in the cultural life of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, including its Mont-Blanc International Humor Festival. For the past twelve years she has lived in the countryside near Marrakech, where she works as an energy therapist and writes stories for children and adults, drawing constant inspiration from nature. As an author and a grandmother, she is moved by the way a story can awaken something in the child who reads it, and it is this question, above all, that she carries into every manuscript she evaluates.
The logo and colour palette of Agafay Books were created by Amlal Akebsi, a young Moroccan designer whose work gave the house its visual soul.
At the heart of the logo lies a detail that tells our entire story. The three A’s of the word AGAFAY are not simply letters. Amlal transformed each one into a drop. Three drops, three convictions that define everything we publish.
A drop of hope. Because every book we place in a child’s hands is a gesture of belief in their future.
A drop of knowledge. Because we publish to inform, to open minds, and to connect Moroccan readers to their history, their culture, and the world.
A drop of joy. Because reading should never be an obligation. It should be a pleasure, a discovery, a moment that belongs entirely to the reader.
Together, these three drops form our deepest belief: that change does not always arrive in waves. Sometimes it comes drop by drop, quietly, patiently, and with extraordinary power.
We are proud that the visual identity of Agafay Books was imagined by a young Moroccan hand.
The animals, the shopping bag, the brochure: everything you hold in your hands when you discover Agafay Books was brought to life by Mohammed Radi, an artist from Taroudant.
Rooted in the rich artistic and cultural heritage of southern Morocco, Mohammed brings to his work a sensibility that is both playful and deeply local. His animal characters are not simply illustrations. They are personalities, each carrying a warmth and expressiveness that speaks directly to children while charming adults equally.
In creating the visual world of Agafay Books, Mohammed gave our stories their first face, the one a child sees before reading a single word. That first impression, we believe, is everything.
We are proud to carry a piece of Taroudant in every book we publish.
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