Michael David Lukas: The Oracle of Stamboul

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Title: The Oracle of Stamboul

Author: Michael David Lukas
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Hardcover: 304 pages
ISBN: 9780062012098
eBook ISBN: 9780062085436

Number One Novels: Congratulations on the publication of your first book! Tell me a little about it—what's your pitch?


Michael David Lukas: Thanks! The Oracle of Stamboul is a magical historical novel about a preternaturally intelligent little girl who becomes an advisor to the Ottoman sultan and, through her advice to him, changes the course of history. That’s my one-floor elevator pitch. Essentially, the book is the story of an eight year-old orphan who, through sheer force of her personality and intellect, pushes back against the tides of history and changes their direction.

NON: How did you get the idea for your novel?

MDL: I started writing The Oracle of Stamboul in early 2004. At the time I was living in Tunisia, studying Arabic, applying to MFA programs, and generally trying to figure out what to do with my life. The seed of the book came to me on a run through the outskirts of Tunis. Eleonora, the protagonist of the book, was hazy in that first glimpse, a slight, precocious child playing backgammon with two older men. I didn’t know anything about her—where she lived or when, who these men were, why she was playing backgammon with them—but I knew as soon as she came to me that I had found my protagonist. Now all I had to do was write the book.

NON: No two authors seem to take the same route to publication, but almost every author has an interesting story about their journey. How did you get published? Did you use an agent? How did you find out that your book had sold?

MDL: When I finished the book, about six years after that initial moment of inspiration, I compiled a list of thirty agents (from friends’ recommendations, general Internet research, and leafing through the acknowledgements sections of books I love). Then I spent far too long crafting and recrafting a cover letter, which I sent out to all the agents on the list. About a month later, I got an email from Nicole Aragi, who was my number one first choice agent (and, interestingly, the only agent who requested a hard copy of the manuscript). We had a couple great conversations about the book, and she sent me her edits. Then I spent the next few months revising. When the revisions were finished, Nicole sent the manuscript out to a number of different editors and, six nail-biting weeks later, it was bought by the wonderful and brilliant Terry Karten at HarperCollins.

NON: I think that names say a lot about a person, especially a fictional person. How did you decide on your protagonist’s full name? Did you have any other names that were in the running?

MDL: My protagonist, Eleonora Cohen, was always Eleonora Cohen. I don’t remember exactly where the name came from, though I think it may have originated in a conversation with my Romanian friend, Laurentiu, whom I was living with at the time.

There was one instance in which I had to change a character’s name. Eleonora's midwife, Mrs. Damakan, was originally named Mrs. Kardashian. When the Kardashian sisters got famous, I had to change her name. Even that was somewhat painful. It took a long time before I could think of her as Mrs. Damakan.

NON: Do you have another book in the works?

MDL: I am currently working on a novel about the Jews of Cairo. The book, which is tentatively titled The Forty-third Name of God, tells the story of an Egyptian Muslim family charged with guarding the Ben Ezra Synagogue and its famous Geniza (a treasure trove of medieval Jewish manuscripts found in the nineteenth century by Solomon Schechter). A multigenerational chronicle, this novel will tell the story of the Genizah, its discovery, and the cosmopolitan Mediterranean world it sheds light on. It is a novel about Muslim-Jewish relations, Cairo, the hidden secrets of the Kaballah, and the sometimes conflicting ties of family and religion.

NON: What's your writing routine? Do you write in the mornings, nights, daily, or when the mood strikes you?

MDL: I write in the mornings, six days a week, from when I wake up until lunch. Sometimes I continue writing after lunch, but usually I spend the afternoons doing revisions, teaching, reading, and working on the occasional book review or essay.

NON: What’s your favorite way to procrastinate?

MDL: Drinking tea, reading, staring out the window, and doing the dishes, not necessarily in that order. My least favorite (but probably most common) means of procrastination is checking email.

NON: What’s your favorite non-essential item on your desk?

MDL: At the back left corner of my desk is a crystal and brass inkwell I bought from the antiques bazaar in Istanbul. That inkwell is tied with the old blue and orange Maxwell House coffee tin at the back right corner of my desk for favorite non-essential item.

NON: What are you currently reading?

MDL: I am currently reading Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, and have been for about six months! In between volumes of Proust, I slipped in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad, Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, Dinaw Mengestu’s How to Read the Air, and Nicole Krauss’s Great House, all of which I really enjoyed.