Zaina Arafat
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Zaina Arafat | |
|---|---|
| Occupation |
|
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | University of Virginia Columbia University University of Iowa |
| Notable works | You Exist Too Much |
| Notable awards | Lambda Literary Award |
Zaina Arafat is a Palestinian American writer and educator. She is the author of the novel You Exist Too Much, which won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction.[1][2] Her essays and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Granta.[3][4][5]
Arafat grew up between the United States and the Middle East, and is based in Brooklyn.[6][7] She earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia, an M.A. from Columbia University, and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.[7]
Her writing has appeared in 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.[8][9][7] She received the Arab Women/Migrants from the Middle East fellowship at Jack Jones Literary Arts.[7]
Arafat has taught writing at Barnard College, the School of The New York Times, and LIU Post.[7]
You Exist Too Much
Arafat's debut novel, You Exist Too Much, was published by Catapult Books in 2020.[10] The novel received reviews in NPR, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Irish Times, Publishers Weekly, and Washington Independent Review of Books.[11][12][13][14][15] In 2021, the book won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction.[2]
In an interview with Them, Arafat discussed writing a protagonist in cultural and sexual in-between spaces, saying that she wanted those aspects of the character to exist without being reconciled.[16]