Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Ceylon-born Canadians poet, fiction writer and essayist.
Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry: in 1967 he published The Dainty Monsters, and in 1970 the critically acclaimed .
Ondaatje has been "fostering new Canadian writing"["Michael Ondaatje." In An Anthology of Canadian Literature in English, edited by Donna Bennett and Russell Brown, 928-30. 3rd ed. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press, 2010.] with two decades' commitment to Coach House Press (ca. 1970–1990). His editorial credits include the journal Brick, and the Long Poem Anthology (1979), among others.
Early life and education
Ondaatje was born in
Colombo, Ceylon (today's
Sri Lanka), in 1943, to Major Mervyn Ondaatje and Doris Gratiaen of
Tamils and
Dutch Burghers (
Dutch people and
Sinhalese people) descent.
His parents later separated. In 1954, he re-joined his mother in
England.
where he attended
Dulwich College.
He emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, in 1962,["(Philip) Michael Ondaatje." In Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2016. Literature Resource Center. Retrieved 30 November 2016.] and studied at Bishop's College School and Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, for three years.
The poet D. G. Jones noted his poetic ability.
Ondaatje began teaching English at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.
Work
Ondaatje 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.[Schillinger, Liesl (14 October 2011), "Michael Ondaatje's Passage From Ceylon". The New York Times.]
In the Skin of a Lion (1987), 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 (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. Running in the Family (1982) is a childhood memoir.
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.[ "How Michael Ondaatje and Daniel Brooks made 'Divisadero' into a play". Kate Taylor, Toronto — The Globe and Mail, 4 February 2011.]
In 2018, his novel Warlight was longlisted for the 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 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, , 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
In 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
[ "Order of Canada: Michael Ondaatje, O.C., M.A.", Governor General of Canada website.] and two years later a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 2005, he received Sri Lanka Ratna, the highest honour given by the Government of Sri Lanka for foreign nationals.
In 2008, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
In 2016, a new species of spider, Brignolia ondaatjei, discovered in Sri Lanka, was named after him.[Selvadurai, Shyam (10 August 2016), "New spider species named for Michael Ondaatje". CBC Books.]
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.
[Schuessler, Jennifer (26 April 2015), "Six PEN Members Decline Gala After Award for Charlie Hebdo", The New York Times. Retrieved 7 May 2015.] Ondaatje, along with 60 other writers, signed a letter to PEN expressing concern that the award valorized "selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world."
Personal life
Since the 1960s, Ondaatje has been a poetry editor for Toronto's Coach House Books.
Ondaatje and his wife,
Linda Spalding, a novelist and academic, co-edit
Brick, A Literary Journal, with
Michael Redhill,
Michael Helm, and
Esta Spalding.
[ "Michael Ondaatje". The Morning News, by Robert Birnbaum.] Ondaatje served as a founding member of the board of trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry from 2000 to 2018.
[ "C$80,000 Griffin Poetry Prize Launched by Renowned Literary Figures: Margaret Atwood, Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson and David Young" , griffinpoetryprize.com, 6 September 2000.] He established the Gratiaen Trust in
Sri Lanka that annually awards the
Gratiaen Prize.
Ondaatje has two children with his first wife, Canadian artist Kim Ondaatje.[ "The Lodger forces out a remake of a remake" , Village Voice, 21 January 2009.]
Books
Novels
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1976: Coming Through Slaughter (also see "Other" section, 1980, below), Toronto: Anansi, ; New York: W. W. Norton, 1977
[Web page titled "Archive: Michael Ondaatje (1943– )" at the Poetry Foundation website. Retrieved 7 May 2008.]
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1987: In the Skin of a Lion, New York: Knopf,
[ ,
]
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1992: The English Patient, New York: Knopf, ,
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2000: Anil's Ghost, New York: Knopf,
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2007: Divisadero,
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2011: The Cat's Table, ,
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2018: Warlight, ,
Poetry collections
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1962: Social Call, The Love Story, In Search of Happiness, all featured in The Mitre: Lennoxville: Bishop University Press
[
]
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1967: The Dainty Monsters, Toronto: Coach House Press
[Robert McCrum (28 August 2011), "Michael Ondaatje: The divided man". The Guardian.]
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1969: The Man with Seven Toes, Toronto: Coach House Press
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1970: (also see "Other" section, 1973, below), Toronto: Anansi
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1973: Rat Jelly, Toronto: Coach House Press
[
]
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1978: Elimination Dance/La danse eliminatoire, Ilderton: Nairn Coldstream; revised edition, Brick, 1980
[
]
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1979: There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems, 1963–1978, New York: W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 1979
[ ,
]
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published as Rat Jelly, and Other Poems, 1963–1978, London, United Kingdom: Marion Boyars, 1980
[
]
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1984: Secular Love, Toronto: Coach House Press, , ; New York: W. W. Norton, 1985
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1986: All along the Mazinaw: Two Poems (broadside), Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Woodland Pattern
[
]
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1986: Two Poems, Woodland Pattern, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
[
]
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1989: The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems, London, United Kingdom: Pan; New York: Knopf, 1991
[
]
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1998: Handwriting, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart; New York: Knopf, 1999
[
]
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2006: The Story, Toronto: House of Anansi,
[
]
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2024: A Year of Last Things, London: Jonathan Cape,
[
]
Editor
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1971: The Broken Ark, animal verse; Ottawa: Oberon; revised as A Book of Beasts, 1979
[
]
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1977: Personal Fictions: Stories by Munro, Wiebe, Thomas, and Blaise, Toronto: Oxford University Press
[
]
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1979: A Book of Beasts, animal verse; Ottawa: Oberon; revision of The Broken Ark, 1971
[
]
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1979: The Long Poem Anthology, Toronto: Coach House
[
]
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1989: With Russell Banks and David Young, Brushes with Greatness: An Anthology of Chance Encounters with Greatness, Toronto: Coach House, 1989
[
]
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1989: Edited with Linda Spalding, The Brick Anthology, illustrated by David Bolduc, Toronto: Coach House Press
[
]
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1990: From Ink Lake: An Anthology of Canadian Short Stories; New York: Viking
[
]
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1990: The Faber Book of Contemporary Canadian Short Stories; London, United Kingdom: Faber
[
]
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2000: Edited with Michael Redhill, Esta Spalding and Linda Spalding, Lost Classics, Toronto: Knopf Canada ; New York: Anchor, 2001
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2002: Edited and wrote introduction, Mavis Gallant, Paris Stories, New York: New York Review Books
[
]
Other
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1966: The Offering - co-producer and co-screenwriter
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1970: Leonard Cohen (literary criticism), Toronto: McClelland & Stewart
[
]
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1973: The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (play; based on his poetry; see "Poetry" section, 1970, above), produced in Stratford, Ontario; produced in New York, 1974; produced in London, England, 1984
[
]
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1979: Claude Glass (literary criticism), Toronto: Coach House Press
[
]
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1980: Coming through Slaughter (play based on his novel; see "Novels" section, 1976, above), first produced in Toronto
[
]
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1982: Running in the Family, memoir, New York: W. W. Norton,
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1982: Tin Roof, British Columbia, Canada: Island,
[ ,
]
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1987: In the Skin of a Lion (based on his novel), New York: Knopf
[
]
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1994: Edited with B. P. Nichol and George Bowering, An H in the Heart: A Reader, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart
[
]
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1996: Wrote introduction, Anthony Minghella, adaptor, The English Patient: A Screenplay, New York: Hyperion Miramax
[
]
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2002: , New York: Knopf,
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2002: Films by Michael Ondaatje
[ Films by Michael Ondaatje ]
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2004: Vintage Ondaatje,
[
]
See also
Notes
Further reading
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Comparative Cultural Studies and Michael Ondaatje's Writing. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2005.
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Barbour, Douglas. Michael Ondaatje. New York: Twayne, 1993.
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Jewinski, Ed. Michael Ondaatje: Express Yourself Beautifully. Toronto: ECW, 1994.
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Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven (斯蒂文·托托西演). 文学研究的合法化: 一种新实用主义 ·整体化和经主 义文学与文化研究方法 (Legitimizing the Study of Literature: A New Pragmatism and the Systemic Approach to Literature and Culture). Trans. Ma Jui-ch'i (马瑞琪翻). Beijing: Peking University Press, 1997. 111–34.
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Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Cultures, Peripheralities, and Comparative Literature." in Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek (ed.). Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998. 150–65.
External links
