Turning Point Books Online

Biography

Michael Karam was born in London in 1965 to Lebanese parents. He claims to be a journalist and wine writer, although no one can be entirely sure. That said, articles purportedly written by him have appeared in the Times, Sunday Express, Esquire, the Spectator, Decanter, Trends, Gulf Marketing Review, Middle East Times and Harpers. He is the co-author of Life’s Like That! and Life’s Even More Like That!

Karam has also written several books about wine and arak. He is a contributor to the award-winning annual Wine Report, published by Dorling Kindersley, and the Oxford Companion to Wine. He is currently the editor of Executive, a regional business monthly, published in Beirut.

Before he found fame, Karam worked variously as a soldier, barman, hospital porter and wallpaper salesman. The high point in his early career was a stint selling Christmas cards at Harrods, a job from which he was dismissed after being discovered taking a siesta in the advent calendar stockroom. In 1988, a year after scraping through university, he competed in two trans-Atlantic yacht races, even though he admits he was seasick for most of the time.

Karam returned to his native Lebanon in 1992. He lives in Beirut with his wife and two children.