The Last Watchman of Old Cairo: A Novel
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)
Published:
Books on Tape 2018
Accelerated Reader:
IL: UG - BL: 7.5 - AR Pts: 12
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
In this “wonderfully rich” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel from the author of the internationally bestselling The Oracle of Stamboul, a young man journeys from California to Cairo to unravel centuries-old family secrets.
“This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
WINNER OF: THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD • THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • THE SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEWISH LITERATURE • Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC • Longlisted for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Prize • A Penguin Random House International One World, One Book Selection • Honorable Mention for the Middle East Book Award
Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the centuries-old history that binds the two sides of his family.
From the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, where generations of his family served as watchmen, to the lives of British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 leave Cambridge on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue, this tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces that attempt to bridge that divide.
Moving and richly textured, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a poignant portrait of the intricate relationship between fathers and sons, and an unforgettable testament to the stories we inherit and the places we are from.
Praise for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
“A beautiful, richly textured novel, ambitious and delicately crafted, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is both a coming-of-age story and a family history, a wide-ranging book about fathers and sons, religion, magic, love, and the essence of storytelling. This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
“Lyrical, compassionate and illuminating.”—BBC
“Michael David Lukas has given us an elegiac novel of Cairo—Old Cairo and modern Cairo. Lukas’s greatest flair is in capturing the essence of that beautiful, haunted, shabby, beleaguered yet still utterly sublime Middle Eastern city.”—Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit and The Arrogant Years
“Brilliant.”—The Jerusalem Post
“This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
WINNER OF: THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD • THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • THE SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEWISH LITERATURE • Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC • Longlisted for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Prize • A Penguin Random House International One World, One Book Selection • Honorable Mention for the Middle East Book Award
Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the centuries-old history that binds the two sides of his family.
From the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, where generations of his family served as watchmen, to the lives of British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 leave Cambridge on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue, this tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces that attempt to bridge that divide.
Moving and richly textured, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a poignant portrait of the intricate relationship between fathers and sons, and an unforgettable testament to the stories we inherit and the places we are from.
Praise for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
“A beautiful, richly textured novel, ambitious and delicately crafted, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is both a coming-of-age story and a family history, a wide-ranging book about fathers and sons, religion, magic, love, and the essence of storytelling. This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
“Lyrical, compassionate and illuminating.”—BBC
“Michael David Lukas has given us an elegiac novel of Cairo—Old Cairo and modern Cairo. Lukas’s greatest flair is in capturing the essence of that beautiful, haunted, shabby, beleaguered yet still utterly sublime Middle Eastern city.”—Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit and The Arrogant Years
“Brilliant.”—The Jerusalem Post
Formats
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More Details
Format:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen
Edition:
Unabridged
Street Date:
03/13/2018
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780525528470
Accelerated Reader:
UG
Level 7.5, 12 Points
Level 7.5, 12 Points
Reviews from GoodReads
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)
Michael David Lukas. (2018). The Last Watchman of Old Cairo: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Michael David Lukas. 2018. The Last Watchman of Old Cairo: A Novel. Books on Tape.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Michael David Lukas, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo: A Novel. Books on Tape, 2018.
MLA Citation (style guide)Michael David Lukas. The Last Watchman of Old Cairo: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2018.
Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 4 | 4 |
Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
5b69dcab-7b38-9a33-e4fc-968b528697f5
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 15:52:57
Date Updated:
Dec 08, 2020 17:54:26
Last Metadata Check:
Apr 21, 2024 07:16:40
Last Metadata Change:
Feb 08, 2024 17:41:49
Last Availability Check:
Apr 21, 2024 07:16:43
Last Availability Change:
Jan 04, 2024 08:22:32
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Apr 25, 2024 02:10:18
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“This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
WINNER OF: THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD • THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • THE SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEWISH LITERATURE • Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC • Longlisted for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Prize • A Penguin Random House International One World, One Book Selection • Honorable Mention for the Middle East Book Award
Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the centuries-old history that binds the two sides of his family.
From the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, where generations of his family served as watchmen, to the lives of British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 leave Cambridge on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue, this tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces that attempt to bridge that divide.
Moving and richly textured, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a poignant portrait of the intricate relationship between fathers and sons, and an unforgettable testament to the stories we inherit and the places we are from.
Praise for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
“A beautiful, richly textured novel, ambitious and delicately crafted, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is both a coming-of-age story and a family history, a wide-ranging book about fathers and sons, religion, magic, love, and the essence of storytelling. This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
“Lyrical, compassionate and illuminating.”—BBC
“Michael David Lukas has given us an elegiac novel of Cairo—Old Cairo and modern Cairo. Lukas’s greatest flair is in capturing the essence of that beautiful, haunted, shabby, beleaguered yet still utterly sublime Middle Eastern city.”—Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit and The Arrogant Years
“Brilliant.”—The Jerusalem Post - reviews
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February 12, 2018
In this evocative novel, Lukas takes readers to Cairo at three different points in its history. One thousand years ago, Ali ibn al-Marwani, a Muslim orphan, becomes the night watchman at the Ibn Ezra Synagogue. In 1897, English twin sisters, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, arrive in Cairo to assist Cambridge scholar Solomon Schechter in acquiring the ancient scrolls held in the synagogue’s storage area. And in the present, Joseph, a Berkeley graduate student who is half-Jewish, half-Muslim, receives a mysterious package from his recently deceased father, which sends him to Cairo to unravel the secret behind the unusual bequest. What binds all three stories is the legendary 2,000-year-old Ezra scroll, purported
to be the most perfect Torah scroll ever created and supposedly stored at the
synagogue. Over the centuries, Ali finds that love and duty don’t mix, Agnes and Margaret traverse a bureaucratic labyrinth to arrive at the Jewish Holy of Holies, and Joseph goes from clue to clue to unlock his father’s past and his own future. Like a contemporary Lawrence Durrell, Lukas (The Oracle of Stamboul) turns the Egyptian city into a tantalizingly seductive place of mystery. And although the story is dramatically diffuse, it is redeemed by the author’s vision of
a more hopeful world where Jews and Muslims come together over a shared cultural heritage. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi Inc.
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“This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
WINNER OF: THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD • THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • THE SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEWISH LITERATURE • Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC • Longlisted for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Prize • A Penguin Random House International One World, One Book Selection • Honorable Mention for the Middle East Book Award
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