Abbas El-Zein

Abbas El-Zein was born and raised in Beirut. Although he came from a family of Shia religious scholars, he attended a French secular school and studied civil engineering at the American University of Beirut. He has lived in the UK, France and Australia and has travelled in Europe, America, the Middle-East and Asia.

Abbas has written essays and short stories about war, identity and displacement for HEAT Magazine, The New York Times, The Age, Meanjin and Australian Book Review. His first novel, Tell the Running Water (Sceptre, 2001), is set in Beirut and tells the intersecting stories of two young men and a woman who are engaged in the war, and coming to terms with the violence around them. His memoir, Leave to Remain, has been published in March 2009 by University of Queensland Press (UQP).  He is associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Sydney.