Zaina Arafat

About the Author

Zaina Arafat is an LGBTQ Arab-American fiction and nonfiction writer. She is the author of the novel You Exist Too Much, which won a 2021 Lambda Literary Award and was named Roxane Gay’s favorite book of 2020. Arafat’s stories and essays have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, BuzzFeed, VICE, Guernica, Literary Hub, and NPR. In recognition of her work, she was awarded the Arab Women/Migrants from the Middle East fellowship at Jack Jones Literary Arts and named a Champion of Pride by The Advocate. Arafat teaches writing at Barnard College, The School of the New York Times, and Long Island University Post, and has led workshops for dreamers and DACA recipients through the Writer’s Guild Initiative. Arafat holds an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an M.A. from Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.