Michael Ondaatje

About Michael Ondaatje

Who is it?: Canadian poet
Birth Day: September 12, 1943
Birth Place: Colombo, Canadian
Birth Sign: Libra
Occupation: Author
Language: English
Alma mater: University of Toronto Queen's University Bishop's University
Notable works: The English Patient Running in the Family Divisadero In the Skin of a Lion Coming Through Slaughter
Notable awards: Governor General's Award - Poetry Booker Prize Giller Prize Prix Médicis étranger Order of Canada St. Louis Literary Award
Spouse: Linda Spalding

Michael Ondaatje Net Worth

Michael Ondaatje was born on September 12, 1943 in Colombo, Canadian, is Canadian poet. Michael Ondaatje is a Canadian novelist and poet whose best known work is the Booker Prize-winning novel, ‘The English Patient’. Born in Sri Lanka, he moved to England as a teenager before finally settling in Canada. Determined to make a mark as a poet from an early age, he started his writing career alongside his teaching profession, establishing himself as a poet before turning to fictional as well as autobiographical works. His works in poetry and fiction are infused with sensual images, rich language and a deeply metaphorical bent. He has published 13 books of poetry and six novels in his literary career and has been able to achieve a distinct name for himself in the world of literature. One of Canada’s most highly regarded writers, he is known for his writing that blurs the line between prose and poetry, past and present, image and intellect, and thought and feeling. He expresses the internal struggles of his characters using a poetic writing style that depends upon association, startling imagery and intense language. His 1992 novel ‘The English Patient’ is regarded as the most successful and well-crafted work of his career which was also adapted into an Academy Award winning motion picture. Deemed as a literary genius, he is one of Canada's most important contemporary writers and a prominent figure in the world of literature
Michael Ondaatje is a member of Writers

💰Michael Ondaatje Net worth: $6 Million

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Biography/Timeline

1943

Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, in 1943; and is of Dutch, Sinhalese, and Tamil ancestry. His parents separated when he was an infant; he then lived with relatives until 1954 when he joined his mother in England. While in England, Ondaatje pursued secondary education at Dulwich College; he then emigrated to Montreal, Quebec in 1962. After relocating to Canada, Ondaatje studied at Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec for three years. In his final year he attended the University of Toronto where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965. In 1967, he received a Master of Arts from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

1960

Since the 1960s, Ondaatje has been involved with Toronto's Coach House Books, supporting the independent small press by working as a poetry Editor. Ondaatje and his wife Linda Spalding, a Novelist and academic, co-edit Brick, A Literary Journal, with Michael Redhill, Michael Helm, and Esta Spalding. In 1988, Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) and two years later a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ondaatje has served on the board of trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry since 2000.

1967

Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry in 1967, publishing The Dainty Monsters, and then in 1970 the critically acclaimed The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. However, he is more recently recognized for his nationally and internationally successful novel The English Patient (1992), which was adapted into a film in 1996.

1970

Ondaatje's work includes fiction, autobiography, poetry and film. He has published 13 books of poetry, and won the Governor General's Award for The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970) and There's a Trick With a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1973–1978 (1979). Anil's Ghost (2000) was the winner of the 2000 Giller Prize, the Prix Médicis, the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, the 2001 Irish Times International Fiction Prize and Canada's Governor General's Award. The English Patient (1992) won the Booker Prize, the Canada Australia Prize, and the Governor General's Award. It was adapted as a motion picture, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and multiple other awards. In the Skin of a Lion (1987), a novel about early immigrants in Toronto, was the winner of the 1988 City of Toronto Book Award, finalist for the 1987 Ritz Paris Hemingway Award for best novel of the year in English, and winner of the first Canada Reads competition in 2002.

1971

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Coming Through Slaughter and Divisadero have been adapted for the stage and produced in theatrical productions across North America and Europe. In addition to The English Patient adaptation, Ondaatje's films include a documentary on fellow poet B.P. Nichol, Sons of Captain Poetry, and The Clinton Special: A Film About The Farm Show, which chronicles a collaborative theatre experience led in 1971 by Paul Thompson of Theatre Passe Muraille. In 2002, Ondaatje 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, as well as a Kraszna-Krausz Book Award for best book of the year on the moving image.

1976

Coming Through Slaughter (1976), is a novel set in New Orleans, Louisiana circa 1900, loosely based on the lives of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden and Photographer E. J. Bellocq. It was the winner of the 1976 Books in Canada First Novel Award. Running in the Family (1982) is a semi-fictional memoir of his Sri Lankan childhood.

1988

On 11 July 1988, Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada which was later upgraded to grade of companion in 2016, the highest level of the order. In 2005, he was honoured with Sri Lanka Ratna by the former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Sri Lanka Ratna is the highest honour given by the Government of Sri Lanka for foreign nationals.

2007

Ondaatje's novel Divisadero won the 2007 Governor General's Award. In 2011 Ondaatje worked with Daniel Brooks to create a play based on this novel.

2009

Ondaatje has two children with his first wife, Canadian Artist Kim Ondaatje. His brother Christopher Ondaatje is a philanthropist, businessman and author. Ondaatje's nephew David Ondaatje is a film Director and Screenwriter, who made the 2009 film The Lodger.

2015

In April 2015, Ondaatje was one of several members of PEN American Center who withdrew as literary host when the organization gave its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to Charlie Hebdo. The award came in the wake of the shooting attack on the magazine's Paris offices in January 2015. Ondaatje and several other hosts felt that while the attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo was reprehensible, the magazine's history of deliberately anti-Islam provocation was not worthy of being honoured.

2016

In 2016 a new species of spider, Brignolia ondaatjei, discovered in Sri Lanka, was named after him.