Tbakhi moved to Phoenix, Arizona, when he was 12, and later studied theater at Arizona State University.[4] His one-person show My Father, My Martyr, and Me grew out of his thesis project and was profiled by ASU News in 2020.[4] The performance was later staged at the Capital Fringe Festival in 2022[5] and at Rhizome DC in 2023.[6]
His short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons and Apex Magazine, and his essays and criticism have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and Protean.[7][8][9][10] He is a recipient of the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize.[11]
Deep Vellum published Tbakhi's debut poetry collection, TERROR COUNTER, in 2025.[12] The book was longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry.[3] In its summer 2025 books preview, Vulture highlighted the collection's formal experimentation, including the "Gazan tunnel", and described the poems as seeking a lyric mode beyond reductive political narratives while holding together survival, care, and collective liberation.[13]
Tbakhi's short story "Root Rot" has received critical attention.[14] It was included in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, edited by Rebecca Roanhorse with series editor John Joseph Adams,[15] and a Strange Horizons review of the anthology called it "the single best piece on offer".[16]