Michael Ondaatje Follow

Philip Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan Canadian novelist and poet, best known for his Booker Prize winning novel adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film, The English Patient. His recent novels include Divisadero (2007), The Cat's Table (2011) and Warlight (2018).

Although he is best known as a novelist, Ondaatje's work also encompasses memoir, poetry and film. His semi-fictional memoir of his Sri Lankan childhood is called Running in the Family (1982). He has also published thirteen books of poetry.

Ondaatje has, since the 1960s, also been involved with Toronto's influential Coach House Books, supporting the independent small press by working as a poetry editor. In 1988 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and two years later became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Ondaatje has two children and lives in Toronto.