麻豆APP

Top 10 Little Known Facts about Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor and filmmaker.   Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, in 1943, of Burgher descent (Dutch and Sinhalese). His parents separated when he was an infant; he then lived with relatives until 1954 when he joined his mother in England.

While in England, Ondaatje pursued secondary education at Dulwich College. He 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 at Kingston.

The more you look, the more dizzyingly kaleidoscopic he seems to become: a Canadian citizen who remains profoundly Sri Lankan. Find out more top 10 little-known facts about Michael Ondaatje.

 

 

1. Michael Ondaatje Mentored by DG Jones

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. Douglas Gordon “D. G.” Jones ( 1929 鈥� 2016) was a Canadian poet, translator and educator.

DG Jones taught English literature at the University of Guelph, then Bishop’s University and finally the Universit茅 de Sherbrooke. In 1969, Jones co-founded the bilingual literary journal Ellipse, which continues to be the only literary periodical in Canada which provides reciprocal translations, in equal measure, of both English and French Canadian poetry.

Jones has been a member of the Arts and Advisory Panel of the Canada Council. His 1978 collection, Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth, received the 1978 Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His rendition of Normand de Bellefeuille’s Categories One, Two and Three received the 1993 Governor General’s Award for Translation.

Considered a seminal figure  of Canadian poetry, Jones is also a highly respected essayist and translator. His key work of critical writing is Butterfly on Rock: A Study of Themes and Images in Canadian Literature (1970).

2. He intentionally Created a strong Indian Character in the English Patient

 

Growing up, Ondaatje found that stories of the Second World War featured mainly white European or American heroes and generally ignored the large contributions of soldiers from India. This is how Sikh sapper, Kirpal Singh, came to be a central piece of The English Patient. 

Ondaatje was saddened by the shrinking of the character Kip in the film version of The English Patient because he felt very close to him when writing the book. The 1996 film adaptation of The English Patient was filmed by director Anthony Minghella and starred Ralph Fiennes as the titular character, Kristin Scott Thomas as Katharine, Juliette Binoche as Hana, Willem Dafoe as Caravaggio and Naveen Andrews as Kip. It won nine Oscars.

3.  Ondaatje  is a well Regarded Poet

A well-regarded poet before he turned to fiction, Ondaatje鈥檚 work in both genres is sensual and rich.  Critics note that although Ondaatje鈥檚 poetry continually evolves as he embraces risk and formal experimentation, he work maintains focus on the myths that root deep in a common cultural experience.

As a poet, he is deeply invested in depicting the affinity between the art of legend and the world at large. 鈥淗e cares more about the relationship between art and nature than any other poet since the Romantics,鈥� stated Liz Rosenberg in New York Times Book Review, 鈥渁nd more than most contemporary poets care about any ideas at all.鈥�

4. Michael Ondaatje does all First Drafts by Pen

Ondaatje always writes the first drafts of his books with pen and paper, saying, “It just seems more natural to me [than typing] and I can think better by handwriting.” In his handwritten manuscripts, Ondaatje uses magazine photographs and poem excerpts as visual breaks throughout the text. These, he said, may have some subliminal influence.

Ondaatje said he prefers writing by hand that it allows him to look at several pages at once. “So I’m seeing a kind of bigger arc,” he said. Thus, he can better determine whether, say, a paragraph should be moved back a few pages. A computer screen, on the other hand, affords only a small window of text at one time.

5. His brother is a Successful Olympian and Businessman

 

Ondaatje’s elder brother Sir Christopher Ondaatje is a successful businessman, explorer and philanthropist and represented Canada in four-man bobsled at the 1964 Olympics. Sir Philip Christopher Ondaatje, OC, CBE, FRSL is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian鈥揈nglish businessman, philanthropist, adventurer, writer and bob-sledging Olympian for Canada.

Sir Ondaatje is a benefactor of the National Portrait Gallery, where a wing is named in his honour. Born in Sri Lanka, he was educated in England and built a successful career in finance and publishing. In the early nineties, Ondaatje returned to writing and is now a respected book reviewer and author. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in June 2000, and awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours list, in June 2003.

6.  Michael Ondaatje is Highly Awarded

He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General’s Award, the Giller Prize, the Booker Prize, and the Prix M茅dicis 茅tranger. Ondaatje is also an Officer of the Order of Canada, recognizing him as one of Canada’s most renowned living authors.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje took home the Golden Man Booker Prize at a festival to mark the literary award’s 50th anniversary. All 51 previous winners were considered by a panel of judges, who whittled them down to one from each decade.

The public then voted on their ultimate favourite and settled on Ondaatje’s romance, which was originally a joint winner of the 1992 prize. Judge Kamila Shamsie said it was “that rare novel which gets under your skin”. Accepting the award, Ondaatje said: “Not for a second do I believe this is the best book on the list – or any other list that could have been put together of Booker novels.”

7.  He Married his Mentors Ex-Wife

He married Kim Ondaatje who was the former wife of his mentor DG Jones. Kim is a mother to six children but also Kim Ondaatje (born Betty Jane Kimbark; born October 2, 1928) is a Canadian painter, photographer, and documentary filmmaker.

In 1967, with fellow Canadian artists Jack Chambers and Tony Urquhart, she founded Canadian Artists’ Representation, which today is the Canadian Artists Representation/Frontes des Artistes Canadiens (CARFAC). CAR was the first artist organization in the world to establish a fee structure for museum and gallery exhibitions of contemporary artists

8. Moving to  Canada Allowed him to Explore Writing

In 1962, Ondaatje travelled to Canada to attend university and moved there permanently. In many interviews, Ondaatje has stated that he probably wouldn’t have become a writer if he hadn’t moved to Canada. He explained that in England there was a sense that writing literature was for the “haves” 鈥� scholars at Oxford and others of that ilk.

“The thing about Canada was that I met writers who were my age. They were making books and discussing poetry. That was a gift I was given. The community of writers was what allowed me to try writing and continue writing.”

9.   Ondaatje  Shared Awards

Twice Ondaatje has shared a major literary prize with another writer: the Man Booker Prize in 1992 and the Giller Prize in 2000. The Giller Prize, now the Scotiabank Giller Prize, was tied in 2000 between Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and David Adams Richards’ Mercy Among the Children.

The Giller Prize was founded in 1994 by Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller, who passed away from cancer the year before. The award recognized excellence in Canadian fiction 鈥� long format or short stories 鈥� and endowed a cash prize annually of $25,000.00, the largest purse for literature in the country.

10.  A species of Spider has been named after him

A species of goblin spider  Brignolia ondaatjei was named for the writer by Sri Lankan researchers and  Anil鈥檚 Ghosts fans. In August of 2016, two new species of spiders were named for Canadian authors Michael Ondaatje and Shyam Selvadurai by the National Institute of Fundamental Studies, a Sri Lankan research body.

Brignolia ondaatjei and Brignolia shyami, small goblin spiders, were discovered after a survey was conducted in Sri Lanka, according to a new research paper by U.G.S.L. Ranasinghe and Suresh P. Benjamin published in Zootaxa. Both Ondaatje and Selvadurai were born in Sri Lanka and currently live in Canada. Ondaatje is one of the country’s most celebrated writers. He won the Man Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient, but the paper’s authors, Ranasinghe and Benjamin, say their favourite novel is Anil’s Ghost.