Philip Michael Ondaatje is a Canadian/Sri Lankan novelist and poet perhaps best known for his Booker Prize winning novel adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film, “The English Patient”. His style of fiction introduced in “Coming Through Slaughter” and mastered in “The English Patient” is non-linear. He creates a narrative by exploring many interconnected snapshots in great detail.
Although he is best known as a novelist, Ondaatje’s work also encompasses memoir, poetry, and film. His memoir of his Sri Lankan childhood is called “Running in the Family”. He has published thirteen books of poetry, and won the Governor General’s Award for two books of poetry: “The Collected Works of Billy the Kid” and “There’s a Trick With a Knife I’m Learning to Do: Poems 1973-1978”.
Ondaatje’s three films include a documentary on fellow poet bpNichol, “Sons of Captain Poetry”, and “The Clinton Special: A Film About The Farm Show”. In 2002, he published a non-fiction book, “The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film”, which won special recognition at the 2003 American Cinema Editors Awards. Since the 1960s, he has also been involved with Toronto’s influential Coach House Books, supporting the independent small press by working as a poetry editor. In 1988 Michael Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) and two years later became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ondaatje
