Michael Ondaatje 

 

An expatriate Ceylonese, Michael Ondaatje returns to the country of his birth in the early 1970s, trying to reconstruct a sense of his family, particularly the father he barely knew.  He treats the reader to startling family anecdotes, spiced with poetic descriptions of the sights, smells and sounds of his exotic homeland.

 

More by Michael Ondaatje (selections) 

 

Novels

 

Divisadero.  2007.

Anil’s Ghost.  2000.

The English Patient. 1992.

In the Skin of a Lion. 1987.

Coming through Slaughter. 1976.

 

Poetry (selected titles)

 

Handwriting: Poems. 1998.

The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems.  1991.

Secular Love.  1984.

Rat Jelly and Other Poems: 1963-78.  1980.

There’s a Trick with a Knife I’m Learning to Do: Poems 1963-1978.  1979.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems.  1970.

The Dainty Monsters.  1967.

 

About Michael Ondaatje

 

General

 

Athabasca University, Centre for Language and Literature

http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/ondaatje.html

 

The Canadian Encyclopedia

http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005927

 

The Canadian Literature Archive

http://www.umanitoba.ca/canlit/michael_ondaatje.shtml

 

Chandler, Anthony N., “Michael Ondaatje,” Scriptorium, July, 2001.

http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/ondaatje.html

 

Contemporary Writers

http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth205

 

Girton, Josh. “Michael Ondaatje,” Postcolonial Studies at Emory

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Ondaat.html

 

Jewinski, Ed.  Michael Ondaatje: Express Yourself Beautifully. 1994.

 

Watson, Diane.  “(Philip) Michael Ondaatje Biography,”

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4645/Ondaatje-Philip-Michael.html

 

Interviews

 

Kamiya, Gary.  “Delirious in a Different Kind of Way: An Interview with Michael Ondaatje,” Salon, November, 1996.

http://www.salon.com/nov96/ondaatje961118.html

 

Kanner, Ellen. “New Discoveries from the Author of The English Patient,” BookPage, May, 2000.

http://www.bookpage.com/0005bp/michael_ondaatje.html

 

Thompson, Bob.  “Michael Ondaatje, in Peak Form; Coming at a Story from Different Angles, the Author Constructs a Novel,” Washingtonpost.com, May 30, 2007.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/29/AR2007052902213_pf.html

 

Welch, Dave. “Michael Ondaatje’s Cubist Civil War,” Powell’s, May, 2000.

http://www.powells.com/authors/ondaatje.html

 

Reviews of Running in the Family

  

Jay, Paul.  “Memory, Identity and Empire in Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family," Midwest Modern Language Association, November, 2003.

http://home.comcast.net/~jay.paul/ondaatje.htm 

 

Silva, Neluka.  “Debunking Ethnic Labels,” Frontline: India’s National Magazine, February 13-26, 1999.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1604/16040750.htm

 

Exotic Ceylon

 

The Ceylon of Ondaatje’s memoir is lush and exotic, full of remarkable inhabitants, both human and animal, but also teetering on the brink of war, prior to its name change to Sri Lanka.  Ondaatje is there in the 1970s, but takes us back in time to the first half of the twentieth century, so that we experience varying flavours and varying times in this small country.

 

Bissoondath, Neil.  The Unyielding Clamor of the Night.  2006. [Fiction]

De Kretser, Michelle.  The Hamilton Case. 2005. [Fiction]

Ludowyk, E. F. C.  The Story of Ceylon.  1962.

Meidav, Edie.  The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon. 2001. [Fiction]

Ondaatje, Michael.  Anil's Ghost.  2001. [Fiction]

Selvadurai, Shyam.  Cinnamon Gardens. 1998. [Fiction]

Tearne, Roma.  Mosquito.  2007. [Fiction]

 

Culture of the Time

 

The “middle class” of pre-war Ceylon took to the higher ground during the unbearably hot summers, there to dance, and drink, to gamble and to cavort; affairs and adultery seemed to be the norm.

 

Auchincloss, Louis.  The Young Apollo and Other Stories.  2006.  [Short Stories]

Conniff, Richard.  The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide. 2002.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott.  The Great Gatsby.  1925. [Fiction]

Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. 1964. [Fiction]

Ondaatje, Christopher.  Woolf in Ceylon: An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf, 1904-1911.  2005. 

Said, Edward.  Orientalism.  1978.

Woolf, Leonard. Growing: An Autobiography of the Years 1904-1911. 1961. [These were his years spent as a civil servant in Ceylon.]

 

Running in the Family

  

As indicated by the title, family is paramount in this memoir:  it is the reason for Ondaatje’s trip to Ceylon.  He learns much about the father he barely knew, and the grandparents he never knew.  Accompanied by his Canadian family, he spends precious time with his sister and his half-sister, both of whom remained when many others emigrated.

 

Atwood, Margaret.  Moral Disorder. 2006.  [Short Stories]

Gunesekera, Romesh. The Sandglass. 1998. [Fiction]

Mistry, Rohinton.  Family Matters. 2002. [Fiction]

Mohanraj, Mary Anne.  Bodies in Motion.  2005. [Short Stories]

Saltzman, Devyani. Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family and Filmmaking. 2006.

Sivanandan, A.  When Memory Dies.  1997. [Fiction]

  

The Land

 

Ondaatje describes the land and its agriculture; his family variously worked with both tea and poultry, and were always interested in what the land could yield.  Again, the word exotic comes into play as we think of both the flora and the fauna of such a rich land.

 

Burt, Heather.  Adam’s Peak.  2007. [Fiction]

Fernando, Maxwell. The Story of Ceylon Tea. 2000.

Hower, Edward. A Garden of Demons. 2003. [Fiction]

Ondaatje, Christopher.  The Man-Eater of Punanai: A Journey of Discovery to the Jungles of Old Ceylon.  1992.

Viestad, Andreas.  Where Flavor Was Born: Recipes and Culinary Travels along the Indian Ocean Spice Route.  2007.

 

 

 

(Created with the help of the Huron County Library Workshop participants.  All Web sites accessed October, 2007.

Maureen O’Connor, WordsWorthy/Connecting Books and Readers/ maureen@wordsworthy.com )