Michael David Lucas is a Jewish American novelist who works at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He came to Cairo to study at the American University in 2000 when he was a first-year student at Brown University. His second novel, The Last Guard of Old Cairo, won the 2018 National Jewish Book Award, the 2019 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and the 2019 American Library Association Sophie Brody Award. The novel has many voices, as it presents the centuries-long relationship between a Muslim family and the Jews of Cairo through three different points of view that change between the chapters of the novel. The novel has a touch of magical realism, in addition to its prevailing historical atmosphere. The events of Cairo in the present era blend with its ancient history, and the events include details of the discovery of the Geniza documents in the Ben Ezra Temple by Professor Solomon Schechter and the twin sisters Margaret Gibson and Agnes Lewis.