Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje, OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet. He won the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient, which was adapted as the 1996 film of the same name...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 September 1943
CountryCanada
joy aces prison
There was always, he thought, this pleasure ahead of him, an ace of joy up his sleeve so he could say you can do anything to me, take everything away, put me in prison, but I will know [her] when we are old.
growing-up war fate
That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes.
relationship book mind
In the book the relationship with Katharine and Almasy is sort of only in the patient's mind.
country home sri-lanka
I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries.
moving stories might
Once I've discovered the story, I might restructure it, maybe move things around, set up a clue that something is going to happen later, but that happens much later in an editorial capacity.
war yellow nurse
So many nurses had turned into emotionally disturbed handmaidens of the war, in their yellow-and-crimson uniforms with bone buttons.
world males habit
We keep wanting to save those who are forlorn in this world. It’s a male habit.
altered being-loved
I thought I was being loved because I was being altered.
plot stories theme
I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.
responsibility stories reader
It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.
country home odd
It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.
busy archaeology
As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.
maps earth cartography
All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
anecdotes helping
Meanwhile with the help of an anecdote I fell in love. Words caravaggio. They have a power.