Michael David Lukas

Michael David Lukas (born March 30, 1979) is an American author best known for his internationally bestselling novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, published by HarperCollins and translated into over a dozen languages. Michael's second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, was published by Random House in 2018 and received the Sami Rohr Prize as well as the National Jewish Book Award. He teaches at San Francisco State University.

His writing has been published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Santa Maddalena Foundation, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Lukas has taught creative writing at 826 Valencia, The Writers' Studio at Stanford University, and the University of the Pacific.

Personal life and education alt=Michael David Lukas reading at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Lukas was born in 1979 in Berkeley, California, where he grew up with his four younger siblings.

Moving East to attend Brown University, Lukas studied comparative literature and then received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the creative writing program at the University of Maryland.

He currently lives in Oakland with his wife Haley and daughters Mona and Amira. 2013 The Millions Fear and Loving in Cairo 2012 The Wall Street Journal How Should A person Be 2011 SFGate The Arrogant Years 2011 SFGate Sympathy For The Pharaoh 2011 Slate Lessons From Third Grade 2011 Publishers Weekly The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore 2011 San Francisco Chronicle Workshopping War Literature 2010 Virginia Quarterly Review Friendly Fire 2009 Virginia Quarterly Review Golems, Novelists, and Other Superheroes 2009 Tikkun How to Win a Cosmic War 2009 Virginia Quarterly Review Destiny Disrupted 2009 San Francisco Chronicle A Skeptic’s Guide to Passover 2009 Slate Passover Miracles Meet Scientific Explanations 2009 All Things Considered We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land 2009 San Francisco Chronicle Mitzvah Mobile 2008 Slate Al’ America 2008 San Francisco Chronicle Question and Answer Men 2008 San Francisco Chronicle Finding Nouf 2008 San Francisco Chronicle Mirror of the Arab World 2008 San Francisco Chronicle The Uncertain Hour 2007 San Francisco Chronicle Forget The Quran 2006 Slate Culinary Orientalism 2007 The New York Times Magazine Tortilla Dreams 2006 Diablo Magazine Israel Vibration 2005 Washington City Paper Tourist Class 2005 Washington City Paper The Commercial Campus 2003 Providence Phoenix My Summer Job 2003 Brown Alumni Magazine My Daddy's War Story In Posse Review For True Bookies, a Wealth of Riches 2002 The Boston Globe A Writer’s Life 2002 Brown Alumni Magazine

Awards 2018: National Jewish Book Award for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo 2019: ALA's Sophie Brody Medal for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo 2019: Sami Rohr Prize for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo