Background

Jay Lukas was born on April 25, 1933 in New York, United States, into the family of Elizabeth and Edwin Lukas. His mother was an actress, and his uncle Paul Lukas was an Academy Award-winning actor.

Education

Since the age of eight Jay studied at the Putney School in Vermont. After his graduation he attended Harvard University, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1955. He continued his education at the Free University of Berlin as an Adenauer Fellow.

Career

After his studying, he worked as a city hall correspondent with the Baltimore Sun. In 1962 he joined the staff of the New York Times working with the Washington and United Nations bureaus. Later assignments took him to the Congo and India. He also covered the trial of the “Chicago Seven”, antiwar protestors accused of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He wrote a book about the experience titled "The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial."

In the 1970s Jay taught at Yale University’s School of Public Communications and at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He also issued "Don't Shoot - We Are Your Children!" and "Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years." Moreover. he was a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, the Columbia Journalism Review, Esquire, Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, and the Saturday Review.

During his long career he became a freelance writer and was also cofounder of More, a magazine that examined the media. In 1997 he became president of the Author Guild. Shortly before his death he completed work on "Big Trouble", a book about the murder of an Idaho governor and the labor leader brought to trial for the crime.

Achievements

• Lukas won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for an article "The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick" published by The New York Times. But still he was best known for his 1985 book "Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families", which earned him the second Pulitzer as well as a National Book Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families 1986
  • Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America 1997
  • Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years 1999
  • Don't Shoot--We Are Your Children! 1971
  • Big Trouble a Murder In a Small Western
  • Nightmare: New Introduction 1988
  • The barnyard epithet and other obscenities; notes on the Chicago conspiracy trial 1970
  • Don't shoot--we are your children! 1971
  • Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle 1997
  • The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial 1970

Connections

Father:

Edwin Lukas

Mother:

Elizabeth Lukas

Brother:

Christopher Lukas

Uncle:

Paul Lukas