Maalouf is the second of four children. His parents' families were from the Lebanese mountain village of Ain el Kabou. His parents married in Cairo in 1945, where Odette, his mother, was born of a Maronite Christian father from the village, who had left to work in Egypt, and a mother born in Turkey. Amin's father, Ruchdi, was from the Melkite Greek Catholic community. One of his ancestors was a priest whose son converted to become a Presbyterian parson. The parson's son (Maalouf's grandfather) was a "rationalist, anticlerical, probably a freemason, and refused to baptise his children". While the Protestant branch of the family sent their children to British or American schools, Maalouf's mother was a staunch Catholic who insisted on sending him to a French Jesuit school. He studied sociology at the French University in Beirut (Université Saint-Joseph).

He worked as the director of the Beirut-based daily newspaper An-Nahar until the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, when he moved to Paris, which became his permanent home.

Maalouf's novels are marked by his experiences of civil war and migration. Their characters are itinerant voyagers between lands, languages, and religions.

• Leo Africanus ISBN 1-56131-022-0
• Samarkand ISBN 1-56656-293-7
• The First Century after Beatrice ISBN 0-7043-7051-4
• The Rock of Tanios (Prix Goncourt 1993) ISBN 0-8076-1365-7
• The Gardens of Light ISBN 1-56656-248-1
• Ports of Call (first published 1996 titled 'Les échelles du Levant') ISBN 1-86046-890-X
• Balthasar's Odyssey ISBN 1-55970-702-X