|
|
|
| Sunday, 19 February 2006 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
World-famous Lankan born writer made his first impact teaching students by Kris Scheuer
Novelist Michael Ondaatje's impact as a writer stretches around the world, but one need not look so far to discover his influence closer to home. Long before the famous author penned the 1992 novel The English Patient, which was made into a hit movie in 1996, Ondaatje was influencing hundreds of budding young writers as he taught modern and contemporary English, at York University's Glendon College campus. Ondaatje is best known for The English Patient for which he won a Governor General's Award, a Booker Prize and a Trillium Award; plus the film adaptation of the novel garnered nine academy awards, which brought this written work further attention. But of course, the man is famous for more than just one novel. In fact by the time The English Patient was written, Ondaatje already had two Governor General's Awards under his belt. He won for his 1970 poetry collection The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems, which was adapted for the stage in both Toronto and New York. He also won for There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning To Do, which was published in 1979. In 1987, he won a Trillium Award for the novel In the Skin of a Lion. These are just a few of his published works. Those who know Ondaatje only for his novels, are truly missing something, and would be well advised to check out a few of his poems. "The Cinnamon Peeler," for example, is a seductive poem about how a cinnamon peeler wishes to leave the scent of his trade on his wife's body. His wife says she would proudly wear this smell as a public testimony to their love and evidence of how he touched her. For those wishing to learn more about Ondaatje, his 1982 novel Running in the Family is a good place to start. It is a fictional biography that traces his childhood in Columbo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he was born in 1943. Instead of relying on documented history, Ondaatje incorporates the oral history of his family (as told to him by relatives during a reunion) to reconstruct his father's tumultuous past. He also throws some fantasy into the mix. Ondaatje, who came to Canada in 1962 and became a citizen in 1965, continued his education in Quebec, where he met poets such as Ralph Gustafson and Doug Jones, who influenced him. He married Jones's former wife, Betty Jane Kimbark in 1964 (and they have since divorced) and he won the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Award in 1965 for a selection of poems called New Wave Canada. Ondaatje became the contributing editor of Brick: A Journal of Review in 1985. He established the bpNicol fund to encourage young writers. The fund is named after a poet friend of his who died at age 44. In 1988, Ondaatje received the Order of Canada. In an interview with Dave Weich, after the 2000 publication of his latest novel, Anil's Ghost, was published, Ondaatje talked about his writing process. "How do I write this book? That's always the question. I never think ahead," said Ondaatje. "Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again. There's a feeling in all the books that everything you know has to go into it. You set everything down, you've done everything, and that's it. It's your last chance. This is the last boat leaving," he said at the time. "So when I finish a novel, whether it's Anil's Ghost or Billy the Kid or In the Skin of a Lion - that's it. I've said everything. I have to start again from scratch. It's a strange state to be in. I'm broke, trying to build again." (Courtesy Town Crier Canada) |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
