Sami Michael won the prestigious EMET Prize – The Israeli Nobel Prize - in Literature for 2007.

EMET Prize is an annual prize given for excellence in academic and professional achievements that have far reaching influence and significant contribution to the Israeli culture and society.

Reasons for awarding the prize:

“Sami Michael is awarded the EMET Prize for redefining the Israeli experience and broadening its boundaries with the inclusion of social environments that were previously excluded from it. By authentically representing the voice of the "other" and placing the immigrant, the woman or the Arab at the center of his writing he initiated a significant process towards pluralism in Hebrew literature...”