Michael Ondaatje

Ondaatje was born in 1943 to Mervyn Ondaatje and Doris Gratiaen in Colombo, the capital city of Ceylon, a former British colony located in present day Sri Lanka. Ondaatje is a Burgher, meaning he is of Sinhalese, Tamil, and Dutch ancestry. After his parents divorced, he was raised in Colombo by relatives. When Ondaatje was 11 years old, he moved to England to live with his mother and siblings. After high school, he attended Dulwich College in London before immigrating to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1962. In Quebec, Ondaatje enrolled at Bishop’s University, where he began to publish his poetry through the university press. Ondaatje graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965, and in 1967, he earned a Master of Arts degree from Queen’s University in Ontario. After college, Ondaatje taught at both the University of Western Ontario in London and Glendon College, York University all while gaining a reputation as a talented writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In 1970, Ondaatje won the Governor General’s Award, a Canadian award for artistic achievement, for his book of poetry, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. He served as an editor for Coach House Press, an independent Canadian publishing company, from 1970 to 1990, helping to foster new Canadian talent. His first novel, Coming Through Slaughter, was published in 1976 and won the Books in Canada First Novel Award. Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1988, and in 2016, he was upgraded to Companion, the highest honor of the merit based order. Ondaatje published perhaps his most successful novel, The English Patient, in 1992, which won the prestigious Booker Prize that same year. His next novel, Anil’s Ghost, was published to popular and critical acclaim in 2000 and won the Giller Prize, a Canadian literary award. In 2005, Ondaatje was honored with Sri Lanka Ratna, the highest honor awarded to Sri Lanka foreign nationals. Ondaatje is the father of two children with his former wife, artist Kim Ondaatje. He lives in Toronto with his current wife, Linda Spalding, a Canadian novelist and academic.