Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje

Ondaatje speaking at Tulane University, 2010
Born Philip Michael Ondaatje
(1943-09-12) 12 September 1943
Colombo, Ceylon
Occupation Author
Language English
Alma mater University of Toronto
Queen's University
Bishop's University
Notable works
Notable awards Governor General's Award - Poetry
Booker Prize
Giller Prize
Prix Médicis étranger
Order of Canada
Spouse Linda Spalding

Philip Michael Ondaatje, OC (/ɒnˈdɑːtʃiː/; born 12 September 1943), is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet. He won the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient (1992), which was adapted as the 1996 film of the same name.

Early life

Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) of Burgher ancestry in 1943 and moved to England in 1954. He attended Dulwich College.[1] After relocating to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. He studied at Bishop's College School and Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec for some time. He then moved to Toronto, where he received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

He began teaching at the University of Western Ontario in London. In 1970, he settled in Toronto. From 1971 to 1990, he taught English literature at York University and Glendon College.

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 (1970) and There's a Trick With a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1973–1978 (1979). Anil's Ghost (2000) 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 (1992) 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 (1987), a novel about early immigrant settlers 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 (1976), 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. Divisadero won the 2007 Governor General's Award. Running in the Family (1982) is a semi-fictional memoir of his Sri Lankan childhood.

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.

Honors

On 11 July 1988, Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.[2] In 2005, he was honored with Sri Lanka Ratna by the former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Sri Lanka Ratna is the highest honor given by the Government of Sri Lanka for foreign nationals.

Public stand

In April 2015, Ondaatje was one of several members of PEN American Center who individually withdrew as literary hosts when the organization gave its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to Charlie Hebdo. The award came in the wake of the fatal shooting attack on the magazine's Paris offices in January 2015.[3]

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 (OC) and two years later a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ondaatje has served on the board of trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry since 2000.[4]

Ondaatje has two children. 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.[5]

Books

Novels

Poetry collections

Editor

Other

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Where Jeeves meets a hard-boiled detective", BBC
  2. ↑ "Order of Canada: Michael Ondaatje, O.C., M.A.", Governor General of Canada website.
  3. ↑ Schuessler, Jennifer, "Six PEN Members Decline Gala After Award for Charlie Hebdo", New York Times, 26 April 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
  4. ↑ "C$80,000 Griffin Poetry Prize Launched by Renowned Literary Figures: Margaret Atwood, Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson and David Young", griffinpoetryprize.com, September 6, 2000.
  5. ↑ "The Lodger forces out a remake of a remake", Village Voice, 21 January 2009
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Web page titled "Archive: Michael Ondaatje (1943- )" at the Poetry Foundation website, accessed 7 May 2008
  7. ↑ Films by Michael Ondaatje

Further reading

External links

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