Michael Ondaatje(1943 — ?)
Michael Ondaatje
Canada
6 min read
Michael Ondaatje is a Canadian writer and poet of Sri Lankan origin, born in 1943 in Colombo. He is known worldwide for his novel The English Patient (1992), which won the Booker Prize and was adapted into a film.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born on 12 September 1943 in Colombo (Ceylon, present-day Sri Lanka)
- Emigrated to Canada in 1962 after studying in England
- Published The English Patient in 1992, winner of the Booker Prize that same year
- The film adaptation of The English Patient (1996) won 9 Oscars
- Received the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018 for The English Patient
Works & Achievements
A hybrid work blending poetry, prose and images around the American outlaw. It earned him the Governor General's Award and revealed his distinctive style.
His first novel, inspired by the figure of jazz cornet player Buddy Bolden, in New Orleans.
An autobiographical narrative born from his return to Sri Lanka to piece together his family's history.
A novel celebrating the immigrant laborers who built Toronto in the early 20th century.
His most famous novel, winner of the Booker Prize and adapted into a film in 1996. The story of four destinies in Italy at the end of the war.
A novel set during the Sri Lankan civil war, centered on a forensic anthropologist investigating the disappeared.
A coming-of-age novel retracing the ocean-liner voyage of a young boy from Ceylon to England.
A novel of espionage and memory set in post-war London.
Anecdotes
In 1992, Michael Ondaatje won the prestigious Booker Prize for The English Patient. In an exceptionally rare turn of events, he had to share it that year with Barry Unsworth, honoured for Sacred Hunger: unable to choose between them, the jury awarded the prize to two winners at once.
The 1996 film adaptation of The English Patient by Anthony Minghella was a worldwide triumph: the film won nine Oscars in 1997, including Best Picture, thrusting the novel and its author onto the global stage.
Born in Colombo, Ondaatje left Sri Lanka as a child. In 1978, he returned to the island of his childhood to piece together his family's history: that journey gave rise to the memoir Running in the Family, weaving together memories, legends and photographs.
For his very first major book, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970), this Canadian of Sri Lankan origin chose a purely American subject: the famous outlaw of the Wild West. Blending poetry, prose and images, the book earned him Canada's Governor General's Award.
In 2018, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Booker Prize, readers around the world were invited to vote for the best winner in the prize's history: The English Patient came out on top and received the “Golden Man Booker”.
Primary Sources
We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom. We are communal histories, communal books.
A memoir in which Ondaatje returns to Sri Lanka to piece together a portrait of his family: “I wanted to touch with my own hands what, until then, had been only a name, a family rumour.”
A novel set during the Sri Lankan civil war, examining the work of a forensic scientist investigating anonymous victims: “A truth simply meant that you knew all the versions of the story.”
Key Places
Ondaatje's birthplace, on the island then known as Ceylon. The country of his childhood inspired several of his books, including Running in the Family and Anil's Ghost.
Ondaatje continued his schooling here after leaving Ceylon in 1954, notably at Dulwich College. It was a key stage in his journey as a child of the diaspora.
Ondaatje completed his university studies here after arriving in Canada. Canada became his adopted country and the setting for several of his works.
The city where Ondaatje lives and teaches, and which he portrays in In the Skin of a Lion through its immigrant builders. The center of his Canadian literary life.