Joel Hafvenstein

Joel Hafvenstein was born in Minnesota in 1976 but grew up in Nepal, where he picked up the habits of reckless exploration, voracious reading, and climbing to the tops of things. His family moved back to Minneapolis in 1990. Joel went to Yale University, spent a few years drifting around San Diego and New York, and eventually got an M.A. in International Relations & Religion from Boston University.

In 2000, while revisiting Nepal and trying to avoid a Maoist strike, Joel found himself in the same guest house as Fiona Mackay, a British family friend from childhood. They stayed in touch, fell in love, and were eventually married at St. Paul's Hammersmith in London in 2006.

In 2003 Joel traveled to Afghanistan for the first time, sparking an enduring fascination with and passion for the country. He worked there on and off for the remainder of the decade. Joel's first book, "Opium Season," an account of an ill-fated aid campaign in the poppy-growing province of Helmand, was published by The Lyons Press in 2007. His writing on Afghanistan has appeared in the New York Times, Commonweal magazine, Registan, and in "The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction," published by Cambridge University Press.

In 2010 Joel returned from Afghanistan to the UK and worked as a global advisor for the charity Tearfund. From 2016-21, he served as executive director of United Mission to Nepal. He still writes about anti-poverty work, and serves as a research assistant for Fiona in her ethnobotany career.

Joel's favorite authors include Marilynne Robinson, China Mieville, Daniel Abraham, Jason Elliot, James C. Scott, and Raymond E. Brown.