Michael Thomas

Michael Thomas is an American author and memoirist. His debut novel Man Gone Down (2007) won the 2009 International Dublin Literary Award and received a prize of €100,000. It got good reviews and was named to several "10 Best Books" lists that year, including The New York Times Book Review.

Michael Thomas was born and raised in Boston. He received his BA from Hunter College and his MFA from Warren Wilson College. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, A Public Space, and in the anthology The Book of Dads.

The pinnacle of Thomas's achievements came when his novel won the prestigious International Impac Dublin Literary Award, worth 100,000 euros (approximately $138,000). The victory coincided with the release in Britain, leading to increased interest from foreign publishers.

The Impac Dublin Award, usually regarded as the second largest and most international literary prize after the Nobel, recognizes fiction written in any language, with nominations made by libraries worldwide.

Set in Brooklyn, Man Gone Down tells the story of an unnamed black narrator facing desperate circumstances over four tumultuous days. Thomas drew inspiration from his own life, having grown up in Boston, dropped out of college, and navigated interracial marriage.

His next book, the memoir, The Broken King (2017), about four generations of men in his family, traces the lives of these men against the backdrop of the last century-and-a-half in American history.

Michael Thomas teaches at Hunter College and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and children.

Photo credit: Ben Russell