Michael Ondaatje's poems have been celebrated by readers and writers alike for containing some of the most memorable and moving verse written in the past half-century. The Story combines Ondaatje's sensual writing with watercolor illustrations by celebrated painter David Bolduc, making a unique item. Left-hand pages contain Bolduc's art while right-hand pages contain Ondaatje's poem — both typeset and in the author's own handwriting. This elegant housing is a fitting accompaniment to Ondaatje's elegaic poem, which follows his larger themes — love, memory, family, exile — even as it unfolds into "our dismantled childhoods," and offers readers the opportunity to extend its narrative into their own lives.

About the Author

Michael Ondaatje (born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Colombo Chetty and Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.

He moved to England in 1954, and in 1962 moved to Canada where he has lived ever since. He was educated at the University of Toronto and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and began teaching at York University in Toronto in 1971. He published a volume of memoir, entitled Running in the Family, in 1983. His collections of poetry include The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems (1981), which won the Canadian Governor General’s Award in 1971; The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems (1989); and Handwriting: Poems (1998). His first novel, Coming Through Slaughter (1976), is a fictional portrait of jazz musician Buddy Bolden. The English Patient (1992), set in Italy at the end of the Second World War, was joint winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction and was made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1996. Anil’s Ghost (2000), set in Sri Lanka, tells the story of a young female anthropologist investigating war crimes for an international human rights group.

Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto with his wife, Linda Spalding, with whom he edits the literary journal Brick. His new novel is

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