Theodore Ell

Theodore Ell is a writer and researcher in literature at the Australian National University. His first poetry collection, Beginning in Sight, shared the 2022 Anne Elder Award. He also won the Calibre Essay Prize in 2021 for ‘Façades of Lebanon,’ his account of surviving the 2020 Beirut port explosion. His memoir Lebanon Days (2024) tells the full story of his time living in the Middle East and has been shortlisted for the 2025 ACT Book of the Year award. Theodore’s poetry and non-fiction have been published in Australia, the UK, Italy and Lebanon.