Carayan is an online journal of literary criticism and poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Our highest priorities are informed literary study that fosters critical conversations on literature; and creative writing that shows a keen sense of place and awareness of Mindanao’s past and present, its landscapes, and rich cultural and ethnic diversity. The journal aims to connect writers in the southern part of the Philippine archipelago to one another and to the larger literary world.
The word carayan is a Proto-Austronesian word for river, a topographical feature that shaped ancient human civilization. In the Philippines, the river played a crucial role in the riparian history of the south. It served as water path allowing colonizers and missionaries to penetrate its secret sanctuary which is its people. But more important, it linked its many ethnic groups and facilitated commercial, aesthetic, and cultural connections between the south and its neighboring islands and regions in Asia.