Books by Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist and filmmaker. Ondaatje won the Booker Prize for The English Patient, which also became an Oscar-winning film.
“The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, published in 1970, was written by the Sri Lankan-Canadian author Michael Ondaatje. In some ways it’s very difficult to classify this book because it draws on fragments of the past that the author collects in order to construct a story about—to help us understand the mind of—one of the most legendary outlaws of the American West. The kind of texts that Ondaatje includes are fragments from a dime novel, a play, illustrations from comic books, news clippings from the era, and historical photos. For me, it stands out as a landmark text because it was this really celebrated literary—even avant-garde—Western, if you can imagine that.” Read more...
Susan Kollin, Literary Scholar
The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje
🏆 Winner of the 1992 Booker Prize
The English Patient is a beautiful novel by Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet Michael Ondaatje. Set in Tuscany in Italy towards the end of World War II, it goes back in time to the beginning of the war and the campaign in North Africa. If you haven't seen the movie yet, read the novel first.
“The novel was written by Michael Ondaatje. It was published in 1992 and won the Booker Prize. We made the film in 1995 and it was released in 1996. Anthony Minghella wrote and directed it and it won nine Academy Awards. I should give the disclaimer that I directed second unit on the film. The ‘English’ patient is László von Almásy, a Hungarian count and desert explorer, who gets caught up in the North African campaign of World War Two. He is also in a romance with a married English woman, which leads to a tragedy and his near death. Rescued from the crash of his plane, he is brought to Italy and through force of circumstances is left in the care of a young French-Canadian nurse, Hana, in a ruined monastery in Tuscany. Something that really fascinates me in rereading the novel, rewatching the film, and reading Michael Ondaatje’s comments on his novel, is the significance of the desert.” Read more...
The Best Book-to-Movie Adaptations
Peter Markham, Film Director
“Warlight is a book of mysteries shrouded in detail: life in the nether regions of a smart hotel; the watery byways of East London down which greyhounds are smuggled. And matching the mysteries are the people: the Moth, the Darter; Marsh Felon. It’s a book to read and re-read.” Read more...
The Best of Historical Fiction: The 2019 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist
Katharine Grant, Historical Novelist
“It would be impossible for me to draw the lines of where Ondaatje transitions from fact to fiction. Maybe even for him it would be impossible. He himself says: ‘Truth disappears with history and gossip tells us in the end nothing of personal relationships.'” Read more...
The best books on Displacement
Michelle Jana Chan, Novelist
Interviews where books by Michael Ondaatje were recommended
The best books on Sri Lanka, recommended by Razeen Sally
Many visitors to Sri Lanka have been beguiled by its charms, from its hill towns to its beaches, its ancient temples to its friendly people. And yet, for a quarter of a century until 2009, it was torn apart by a brutal civil war. Here, Sri Lanka-born political economist Razeen Sally, author of Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Land, recommends the best books to get a better understanding of Sri Lanka and the complexities that make the country so fascinating to visit and read about.
The best books on Displacement, recommended by Michelle Jana Chan
A sense of displacement is at the heart of many of our greatest works of literature. Here Vanity Fair travel editor Michelle Jana Chan discusses five brilliant novels dealing with this theme that influenced her debut Song.
The Best of Historical Fiction: The 2019 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist, recommended by Katharine Grant
The best historical novels are those so immersive and natural in tone that their period setting is a ‘by-the-way,’ says Katharine Grant, the novelist and judge for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. Here she discusses the six brilliant books that made the 2019 shortlist.
Historical Novels Set in World War 2
The dramatic events and scope of World War 2 make it one of the most popular settings for historical fiction. The range of books varies widely, from real-life stories written up as novels, to entirely fictional accounts which use one or more of the many horrific events of World War II as backdrop.
The Best Book-to-Movie Adaptations, recommended by Peter Markham
Both books and movies seek to tell compelling stories, but they do so in different ways. Peter Markham, both a director and a long-time teacher of directing at the American Film Institute, talks us through five of his favourite book-to-movie adaptations—and what they reveal about successfully bringing a book to the screen.
Landmark Western Novels, recommended by Susan Kollin
The Western evolved out of colonial adventure narratives that dramatised a battle between so-called ‘savagery’ and ‘civilisation’; dime novels then turned the cowboy into an iconic symbol of masculinity—explains Susan Kollin, professor of American studies at Montana State University. But this antique genre has plenty of literary potential and moral uncertainty to offer to the modern reader. Here, she selects five landmark Western novels that explore frontier mythology.
