Michael Ondaatje

After reading Michael Ondaatje’s book, In the Skin of a Lion, I found interest in him because this book of his was very alluring and profound. Apparently, he is a Canadian writer, so I was excited to know more about him. Ondaatje wrote a lot of romantic books. This shows his characteristics and the romantic side of him. I know this also because he had many affairs before he got married. After reading his book, I noticed that he creates his characters and lets them reveal themselves through their actions. When I started reading his book, I found myself looking forward to the story and happenings. Therefore I am eager to investigate more about him to have a clear idea of where he’s from and what is appealing about his way of writing, so I can be further inspired.

Some information about him

Born: September 12, 1943
Birthplace: Ceylon, Sri Lanka
Gender: Male
Occupation: Novelist, Poet and Film
Currently lives in: Toronto, Canada
Background: Sri Lankan

Michael Ondaatje moved from Sri Lanka to England in 1954 with his mother. After moving to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. He first studied 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 in Kingston, Ontario. After, he began teaching at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. In 1970, he settled in Toronto and, from 1971 to 1988, taught English Literature there at York University and Glendon College.

Apart from being a novelist, Ondaatje is also interested in autobiography, poetry and film. Running in the Family (1982) is a fictional journal of his Sri Lankan childhood. He published thirteen books of poetry, and won the Governor General’s Award for two of them, which is The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970) and There’s a Trick With a Knife I’m Learning to Do: Poems 1973-1978 (1979). Now, with his family, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto. He edits the literary journal Brick with his wife, Linda Spalding. In all, his new novel is Divisadero (2007).

Interesting

Ondaatje’s novel, The English Patient became very famous after it was made into a film. The story is a fictional World War romance. It is about four individuals whose lives come together at the end of World War II in a left alone Italian villa. The novel becomes a collection of memories that searches themes of war, nationality, identity, loss, and love. This book earned The Booker Prize for best novel of 1992.

Quote: This quote shows his personality and the type of writer he is
“Some writers know exactly what their books are about when they begin,” he says. “That seems incredibly boring to me. I am much more interested in how the writer evolves in the writing, so that the novel evolves as well.” It was the same, he says, when he wrote his most famous novel, The English Patient. “I didn’t know who the patient was: he was just the patient. He was a mystery to me. But then, as a book progresses, there is a kind of archaeology the writer performs on the characters; you work backwards.”

Here’s the book I read

 His most famous book

  Carlos Fuentes Macías

Quote: “Writing is a struggle against silence” 

Born: November 11, 1928
Birthplace: Panama City, Panama
Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: Hispanic
Occupation: Novelist, Diplomat
Nationality: Mexico
Executive summary: La muerte de Artemio Cruz
Father: Rafael Fuentes Boettiger (Mexican diplomat)
Mother: Berta Macías Rivas
Wife: Rita Macedo (actress, div. 1966, one daughter)
Daughter: Natasha Fuentes (d. 22-Aug-2005)
Wife: Sylvia Lemus (m. 1973, one son, one daughter)
Son: Carlos Rafael Fuentes (d. 1999 hemophilia)

Carlos Fuentes Macías is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. He has lived in many different countries because his father was a diplomat, during his childhood. He lived in Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Washington, Santiago and Buenos Aires. As he grew up, he returned to Mexico, where he lived until 1965. He also became a diplomat in 1965 and served in London, Paris (as ambassador), and other capitals, following the footsteps of his parents. In 1978 he resigned as ambassador to France in protest over the appointment of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, former president of Mexico, as ambassador to Spain. The author describes himself as a pre-modern writer, using only pens, ink and paper. Fuentes regularly writes essays on politics and culture to the Spanish newspaper El País and Reforma. Overall, he writes novels, short stories, essays and works in theatre.

His Fantastic Literature
“I tighten my face muscles, I open my right eye, and I see it reflected in the squares of glass sewn onto a woman’s handbag. That’s what I am. That’s what I am. That old man whose features are fragmented by the uneven squares of glass. I am that eye. I am that eye. I am that eye furrowed by accumulated rage, and old, forgotten, but always renewed rage.”

Interesting:
Mexican novelist, journalist, playwright, and essayist, who made his international breakthrough with The Death of Artemio Cruz in 1962. Major themes in Fuentes’s work are the limitless power of fantasy, the dilemma of national identity, and the promise and failure of the Mexican revolution. Fuentes has been frequently mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature.

Something else that I found interesting about him is that he has lived a diplomatic life which I know a lot about. Diplomacy causes people to move a lot which I did as well because of my father being a diplomat. Therefore, I wanted to investigate more about him and his diplomatic life to find connection. I want to know how he managed to live in different places and still become successful. I also want to know if he found it stressful like I did.