PHOTO: SHEENA CHAKERES
Hafeez Lakhani was born in Hyderabad, India and raised in suburban South Florida. His fiction and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse, Exposition Review, Salt Hill, Tikkun, The Cortland Review, and The Southern Review, among other places, and have garnered fellowships from PEN America and The Center for Fiction. He was twice recognized with a Notable Essay in Best American Essays and twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. After publishing his essay, If We Show That We Like They Make More Mainga, he was profiled by the Huffington Post as one of “Eight Fantastic New Writers To Look Out For”. His debut novel, Abundance, following five members of an American Muslim family across Miami, New York, Monaco, and Gujarat, each grappling with questions of ambition versus destiny as the matriarch decides whether to accept an organ transplant, is forthcoming from Counterpoint Press in Spring 2026.