Safae El-Ouahabi
Associate
Since joining RCW in 2019, Safae El-Ouahabi has been working alongside Claire Wilson and Jon Wood across the children's and YA fiction and commercial adult fiction and non-fiction lists. She also takes on the role of Digital and Communications Manager at RCW, while actively building her own list. Her taste is wide-ranging, but she has a particular interest in dynamic, voice-driven narratives that carry a sense of urgency—stories that are emotionally impactful and have a strong hook without being overwritten.
Whether in adult, YA, or crossover, she enjoys fantasy and speculative fiction books that draw connections to real-world issues, for example N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy, which blends fantasy with cli-fi elements, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower—a fusion of dystopia, speculative fiction, and Afrofuturism—and R.F. Kuang’s Babel, where fantasy intersects with historical allegory as it delves into the themes of structural oppression, colonialism, language and resistance. She is also drawn to Historical Fiction, enjoying books like Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.
She is open to romantic fiction submissions with a fresh take on tropes like enemies-to-lovers, fake relationships, and forbidden love, while in the thriller genre, she looks for the same freshness, as seen in The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi—an inverted murder mystery offering a unique take on the crime-novel form. Her interests also span to Romantasy, and in general fiction, she likes books that straddle genres. In non-fiction, she leans towards mental health-focused works like What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, an exploration of the science behind complex PTSD, as well as books investigating shocking scams, cover-ups and series of crimes.
Safae is actively building a translator list, representing Anton Hur, Daisy Rockwell, Clare Richards, Shanna Tan, Anam Zafar and Emily Balistrieri. She holds a B.A. in History from UCL and is a Creative Access alumni.
Her email address is safae@rcwlitagency.com