Michael Ondaatje


Philip Michael Ondaatje, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller Prize, the Booker Prize, and the Prix Médicis étranger. Ondaatje is also an Officer of the Order of Canada, recognizing him as one of Canada's most renowned living authors.
Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry in 1967, publishing The Dainty Monsters, and then in 1970 the critically acclaimed . However, he is more recently recognized for his nationally and internationally successful novel The English Patient, which was adapted into a film in 1996. In 2018, Ondaatje won the Golden Man Booker Prize for The English Patient.
In addition to his literary writing, Ondaatje has been an important force in "fostering new Canadian writing" with two decades commitment to Coach House Press, and his editorial credits on Canadian literary projects like the journal Brick, and the Long Poem Anthology, among others.

Early life and education

Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, in 1943; he is of Dutch and Sinhalese ancestry, making him a Burgher. His parents separated when he was an infant; he then lived with relatives until 1954 when he joined his mother in England. Before moving to England, he attended S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia in Colombo. While in England, Ondaatje pursued secondary education at Dulwich College; he then emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, in 1962. After relocating to Canada, Ondaatje studied at Bishop's College School and Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, for three years. In his final year he attended the University of Toronto where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965. In 1967, he received a Master of Arts from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
While he was working on his undergraduate degree at Bishop's University, Ondaatje's met his future mentor, the poet D.G Jones, who praised his poetic ability.
After his formal schooling, Ondaatje began teaching English at the University of Western Ontario in London. In 1971, reluctant to get his PhD, he left his position at Western Ontario and went on to teach English literature at Glendon College, York University.

Work

Ondaatje's work includes fiction, autobiography, poetry and film. He has published 13 books of poetry, and won the Governor General's Award for The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and There's a Trick With a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1973–1978. Anil's Ghost was the winner of the 2000 Giller Prize, the Prix Médicis, the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, the 2001 Irish Times International Fiction Prize and Canada's Governor General's Award. The English Patient won the Booker Prize, the Canada Australia Prize, and the Governor General's Award. It was adapted as a motion picture, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and multiple other awards. In the Skin of a Lion, a novel about early immigrants in Toronto, was the winner of the 1988 City of Toronto Book Award, finalist for the 1987 Ritz Paris Hemingway Award for best novel of the year in English, and winner of the first Canada Reads competition in 2002.
Coming Through Slaughter, is a novel set in New Orleans, Louisiana, circa 1900, loosely based on the lives of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden and photographer E. J. Bellocq. It was the winner of the 1976 Books in Canada First Novel Award. Running in the Family is a semi-fictional memoir of his childhood in Ceylon.
Ondaatje's novel Divisadero won the 2007 Governor General's Award. In 2011 Ondaatje worked with Daniel Brooks to create a play based on this novel.
In July 2018 his novel Warlight was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Adaptations

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Coming Through Slaughter and Divisadero have been adapted for the stage and produced in theatrical productions across North America and Europe. In addition to The English Patient adaptation, Ondaatje's films include a documentary on fellow poet B.P. Nichol, Sons of Captain Poetry, and 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. In 2002, Ondaatje published a non-fiction book, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, which won special recognition at the 2003 American Cinema Editors Awards, as well as a Kraszna-Krausz Book Award for best book of the year on the moving image.

Honours

On 11 July 1988, Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada which was later upgraded to grade of companion in 2016, the highest level of the order. In 2005, he was honoured with Sri Lanka Ratna by the former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Sri Lanka Ratna is the highest honour given by the Government of Sri Lanka for foreign nationals.
In 2016 a new species of spider, Brignolia ondaatjei, discovered in Sri Lanka, was named after him.

Public stand

In April 2015, Ondaatje was one of several members of PEN American Center who withdrew as literary host when the organization gave its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to Charlie Hebdo. The award came in the wake of the shooting attack on the magazine's Paris offices in January 2015. Ondaatje and several other hosts condemned the attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo, but claimed that due to the magazine's history of anti-Islam content it should not have been honoured.

Personal life

Since the 1960s, Ondaatje has been involved with Toronto's Coach House Books, supporting the independent small press by working as a poetry editor. Ondaatje and his wife Linda Spalding, a novelist and academic, co-edit Brick, A Literary Journal, with Michael Redhill, Michael Helm, and Esta Spalding. In 1988, Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and two years later a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ondaatje served as a founding member of the board of trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry from 2000 to 2018.
Ondaatje has two children with his first wife, Canadian artist Kim Ondaatje. His brother Christopher Ondaatje is a philanthropist, businessman and author. Ondaatje's nephew David Ondaatje is a film director and screenwriter, who made the 2009 film The Lodger.

Books

Novels