Lena Merhej

Lena Merhej (PhD) is a visual storyteller and an expert in graphic narration. She taught at the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University, and now teaches at the Lebanese International University. She is the founder and director of the Story Center which offers professional trainings in animation, illustration and comic books. She is also the director of the Lebanese festival, Beirut Animated. She now works with Tosh Fesh to promote comics and animation in Arab countries. Having lived the Lebanese Civil war, her interest in visual storyteller thesis focused her thesis project at Parsons School of Design in New York on animating the award winning “Drawing the War/ رسم الحرب”, her thesis research at Jacobs University in Bremen was entitled “Analysis of Graphic Narratives: War in Lebanese Comics”, and the article “Men with Guns” in Postcolonial Comics (2015) focused on the analysis of war characters. She is a co-founder, and an active editor and collaborator in Samandal, a comics organization in Lebanon, with which she edited the comics anthology, “ça restera entre nous/خلف الباب”. Lena Merhej has exhibited her work both locally and internationally. She illustrated over 20 Arabic children’s books. War is also the subject of her first comic book, I think we will be calmer in the next war (2006), rated the highest selling book in Lebanon in 2007. Also, Another Year (2008) and Yogurt and Jam, or How My Mom Became Lebanese (2011) took the FIBDA award for Best Arabic Comics deal with occupation, war and conflict.