I have a Lebanese-Australian background, and am currently a research fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. I previously held the position of Assistant Professor at Notre Dame University in Lebanon, between the years 2001-2007. Recent publications include: "Memory in a Paratactic Register: Abbas El-Zein's Leave to Remain: A Memoir". Southerly, Vol. 70, No. 1, 2010 "Between Anaesthesia and Analepsia: Transformational Aesthetics in Jakob Roepke's Compact Collages". In Plurale: Zeitschrift für Denkversionen, Vol. 9, 2010 "Seductive Identifications: Parody and Power in Loubna Haikal's Seducing Mr Maclean".

In Paul Tabar (ed) Politics, Culture and Lebanese Diaspora. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, 2010 "Out-Posting Edward Said". Postcolonial Text, Vol. 5. No 4. 2010 Saadi Nikro's timely study is an interdisciplinary and theoretically complex exploration of postwar Lebanese cultural production in both Arabic and English. Focusing on the works of one documentary filmmaker and four writers, he interprets their reflections on the effects of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, including its undermining of their formerly leftist beliefs. At the same time, Nikro argues that their critical uses of memories as events have become forces to combat state-sponsored amnesia of the mayhem.

This is an erudite foray into a new and still developing area of academic research and, therefore, a welcome addition. Syrine Hout, Associate Professor of English, American University of Beirut 'rarely has someone as theoretically well-read as Saadi Nikro subjected Arab literature to such an intimate analysis. the result is an intellectually stimulating interrogation of both form and content that brings out the decentered and decentring relation between identity, memory and temporality that lies at the heart of the creative practices of the Arab authors and film makers analysed. This work is of interest not only to those working in Arab literary studies, but to all who want to deepen their understanding of Arab cultural forms as a whole.' Ghassan Hage is Future Generation Professor of Anthropology and Social Theory, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne.