Michael Ondaatje fuses exuberant storytelling with jazz rhythms and luxurious imagery in his bestselling novels. Born in Sri Lanka, educated in England, and currently a resident of Canada, Ondaatje draws on a wealth of sources to inspire his rich imagery. He emerged as one of Canada's most respected young poets in the 1960s, though he is best known as a novelist. His works of fiction include The English Patient, In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, and Anil's Ghost. He received the 1992 Booker Prize for The English Patient, a non-linear narrative of four people living in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II. In 1996, The English Patient was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. Ondaatje's new novel Divisadero leaps from Petaluma to Paris as it delves into a story about the demands of history, family, and love. With his wife, Linda Spaulding, Ondaatje edits the literary journal Brick.

In conversation with Robert Hass

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