Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje, OC , MA , BA (born 12 September 1943) is a Canadian/Sri Lankan novelist and poet perhaps best known for his Booker Prize winning novel adapted into an Academy Award winning film, The English Patient.
Life and work
Born in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) of Dutch-Tamil-Sinhalese-Portuguese origin, in 1954 he moved to England with his mother.
After relocating to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. Ondaatje received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and began teaching at the University of Western in London, Ontario. In 1970 he settled in Toronto. From 1971 to 1985 he taught English Literature at York University and Glendon College in Toronto.
He and his wife, novelist and academic Linda Spalding, co-edit Brick, A Literary Journal, with Michael Redhill, Michael Helm, and Esta Spalding.
His style of fiction introduced in Coming Through Slaughter (1976) and mastered in The English Patient (1992) is non-linear. He creates a narrative by exploring many interconnected snapshots in great detail.
Although he is best known as a novelist, Ondaatje's work also encompasses memoir, poetry, and film. His memoir of his Sri Lankan childhood is called Running in the Family (1982). He has published eleven books of poetry, and won the Governor General's Award for two books of poetry: The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970) and There's a Trick With a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1973-1978 (1979). His three films include a documentary on fellow poet bp nichol, The Sons of Captain Poetry, and also The Clinton Special: A Film About The Farm Show, which chronicles a collaborative theatre experience led in 1971 by Paul Thompson of Theatre Passe Muraille. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and Coming Through Slaughter have been adapted for the stage and produced in numerous theatrical productions. Since the late 1960s, Ondaatje has been involved with Toronto's influential Coach House Books, supporting its work as a small independent press by working as an editor. In 2002 he published a non-fiction book, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film.
He is also known for four other works of fiction:
- Anil's Ghost—winner of the 2000 Giller Prize, the Prix Médicis, and Canada's Governor General's Award.
- The English Patient—winner of the Booker Prize, the Canada Australia Prize, and the Canadian Governor General's Award and later made into a motion picture, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. The English Patient can be considered a sequel to In the Skin of a Lion (1987).
- In the Skin of a Lion—winner of the 1987 City of Toronto Book Award and finalist for the Ritz Paris Hemingway Award for best novel of the year in English. It was selected for the first "Canada Reads" edition in 2002. A fictional story about early immigrant settlers in Toronto, In the Skin of a Lion eventually won the competition.
- Coming Through Slaughter—a fictional story of New Orleans, Louisiana about 1900, very loosely based on the lives of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden and photographer E. J. Bellocq. Winner of the 1976 Books in Canada First Novel Award
In 1988 Michael Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and two years later became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Bibliography
- The Dainty Monsters - 1967
- Leonard Cohen - 1969 (essay)
- The Man with Seven Toes - 1969
- The Collected Works of Billy the Kid - 1970
- The Broken Ark: A Book of Beasts - 1971 (editor)
- Rat Jelly - 1973
- Coming Through Slaughter - 1976
- Personal Fictions: Stories by Munro, Wiebe, Thomas, and Blaise - 1977 (editor)
- Elimination Dance - 1978
- There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do - 1979
- The Long Poem Anthology - 1979 (editor)
- Tin Roof - 1982
- Running in the Family - 1982
- Secular Love - 1984
- In the Skin of a Lion - 1987
- From Ink Lake: Canadian Stories - 1990 (editor)
- The Brick Reader - 1991 (edited with Linda Spalding)
- The Cinnamon Peeler - 1991
- The English Patient - 1992
- Handwriting - 1998
- Lost Classics - 2000 (edited with Michael Redhill, Esta Spalding and Linda Spalding)
- Anil's Ghost - 2000
- The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film - 2002
- The Story - 2005
See also
External links
- Order of Canada Citation
- Salon Interview With Ondaatje
- Ondaatje family history
- Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry Ondaatje is a founding trustee.
- Films by Michael Ondaatje
Further reading
- Barbour, Douglas, Michael Ondaatje, (New York: Twayne, 1993). ISBN 0805782907
- Jewinski, Ed, Michael Ondaatje: Express Yourself Beautifully, (Toronto: ECW, 1994). ISBN 1550221892