Exciting news on the book front: Michael David Lukas has just released his much-anticipated novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, about an eight year-old orphan girl who becomes an advisor to the Ottoman sultan and, in the process, changes the course of history. A former Fulbright Scholar in Turkey and Rotary Scholar in Tunisia, Lukas has also written for the Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate, and National Geographic Traveler. This summer, we’ll both be teaching at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. Here’s the scoop on his new book:
Tell us about the origins of The Oracle of Stamboul.
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 undeveloped 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….
