Abbas El-Zein was born and raised in Beirut. He was twelve years old when the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975. He went to the Mission Laïque Francaise school and studied civil engineering at the American University of Beirut. He left Lebanon in 1986, at the age of 23, and has since lived in the UK, France, Lebanon and Australia. Abbas has published essays, articles and short stories about war, identity and displacement. His writing has appeared in HEAT Magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Age, Meanjin, Australian Book Review and Tank Magazine, among others. His novel, Tell the Running Water, is set in Beirut and tells the intersecting stories of two young men and a woman coming to terms with the violence around them. His memoir, Leave to Remain, is an autobiographical meditation on war, identity and East-West relations, and won a New South Wales Premier literary award (Community Relations Commission Award) in 2010. The Secret Maker of the World, a collection of short stories about violence, justice, love and loss, set in different continents and eras. His latest book, Bullet Paper Rock – A Memoir of Words and Wars, published on 3 April 2024, is a story of survival and a reflection on language and desire, amid the upheavals of war, the Arab Spring and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Abbas is Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Sydney and has written extensively on environmental and climate change issues.