From one of the most influential writers of his generation, a gorgeously surprising poetry collection about memory, history, and the act of looking back Following several of his internationally acclaimed novels, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje’s long-awaited return to poetry . In pieces that are sometimes witty, sometimes moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and the abandoned landscapes we hold on to to rediscover the influence of every border crossed. Moving from a Sri Lankan boarding school to Molière’s chair during his last stage performance, to Bulgarian churches and their icons, to the California coast and his beloved Canadian rivers, Michael Ondaatje casts a brilliant eye that merges memory with the present, in the way memory as the distant shores of art and lost friends continue to influence everything that surrounds him. From his poem "His chair, a narrow bed, a motel room, the fox": At the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles Sam Cooke was shot dead. ‘See that shadow on the wall . . .’ All those motels and hotels in literature and song, where X wrote this, where Y got drunk, where Z overdosed. The one Hank Williams was driven past, dead already in his car. The Slavianski Bazaar Hotel in "The Lady with a Dog," where Dmitri imagines their dark but hopeful future. The Hôtel de ville de Courtrai, where Verlaine shot Rimbaud. The Casa Verdi in Milan, where retired opera singers were welcomed along with various heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa in their afterlife.
Author
He was born to a Burgher family of Dutch-Tamil-Sinhalese-Portuguese origin. He moved to England with his mother in 1954. After relocating to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. Ondaatje studied for a time at Bishops College School and Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, but moved to Toronto and received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and began teaching at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. In 1970 he settled in Toronto. From 1971 to 1988 he taught English Literature at York University and Glendon College in Toronto. He and his wife, novelist and academic Linda Spalding, co-edit Brick, A Literary Journal, with Michael Redhill, Michael Helm, and Esta Spalding. Although he is best known as a novelist, Ondaatje's work also encompasses memoir, poetry, and film. 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 Michael Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) and two years later became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has two children and is the brother of philanthropist, businessman, and author Christopher Ondaatje. In 1992 he received the Man Booker Prize for his winning novel adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film, The English Patient.
