He was educated at the bilingual French-Arabic school, Mission Laique Francaise.[21] After graduating with a degree in civil engineering from the American University of Beirut in 1986, he left for the UK where he acquired Master's and PhD degrees in computational mechanics and mathematical modelling from the University of Southampton, and later, a Master's by research degree in environmental science from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris. He lived and worked in the UK and France for a number of years before moving to Australia in 1995. He started writing his first novel while living in the UK.[22] In 1993, he participated in a writing workshop/retreat run by Beryl Bainbridge and Bernice Rubens at the Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre, Wales.