[4] He grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon, which he left at age 17 to live first in England and then in California to pursue higher education.

He earned a degree in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master of Business in San Francisco.

His debut novel Koolaids, which touched on both the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and the Lebanese Civil War, was published in 1998 by Picador.

[9][10] Alameddine is best known for this novel, which tells the story of Aaliya, a Lebanese woman and translator living in war-torn Lebanon.

The novel "manifests traumatic signposts of the [Lebanese] civil war, which make it indelibly situational, and accordingly latches onto complex psychological issues.