Ondaatje - the multinational

Michael Ondaatje was born in Colombo on September 12, 1943 , to a family of burgher Dutch-Tamil-Sinhalese-Portuguese origin. Due to his father's drinking problem his parents got separated and in 1954 he moved to England with his mother.

In 1962, Ondaatje went to Canada. He studied at Dulwich College in London, Bishop's University, University of Toronto, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and then began teaching at the University of Western Ontario. In 1970 he settled down in Toronto and from 1971 to 1988 taught English Literature at the York University and Glendon College in Toronto.

Although he is better known for his novels he has, to date, published 13 volumes of poetry. His works also include memoir and a film. Running in the family was a memoir with a characteristically Sri Lankan backdrop and The English patient won the Booker McConnell Prize before it was made in to a world renowned, Oscar winning movie in 1996. His Anil's Ghost seized the attention of his readers yet again capturing the 1992 Booker Prize.

The story is about a forensic anthropologist, who has come back to Sri Lanka after many years, but the readers are given the surprise of their lives as the story takes a completely different path from what may have been originally expected by the reader.

His The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is yet another interesting piece of work for its collection of snapshots, poems, flyers, interviews, diary entries, and songs.

His style of fiction is non-linear, introduced in Coming Through Slaughter, 1976 and more evident in The English Patient, (1992). His narrative is made up of interrelated snapshots, explored in great detail. Judging by all his work it is clear that he is comfortable working with multinational settings, taking the readers from one locale to another, often within the same novel.

Some of his works reflect the distress caused by an unattainable past, which may perhaps reflect the losses he went through - loss of motherland, familiar language, as depicted by his novel-memoir Running in the family and Anil's Ghost, and his father - all of which he lost contact with, after he migrated. Michael Ondaatje has won many awards for his masterpieces.

He was awarded the Ralph Gustafson Award in 1965, the Epstein Award in 1966, the President's Medal from the University of Ontario in 1967, the Canadian Governor-General's Award for Literature in 1971 and 1980, Canada-Australia prize in 1980. Ondaatje currently resides in Toronto with his wife, novelist and editor Linda Spalding.