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Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje was born on September 12, 1943, in Ceylon. Of Dutch and Indian ethnic roots, he studied in Colombo until he accompanied his mother when she moved to England in 1954.
He completed his secondary studies in London and, upon finishing them, moved to Canada, arriving in Toronto in 1962. He then enrolled at the University of Toronto and, after obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1965, transferred to Queen's University in Ontario, where he obtained his teaching degree two years later. He then began a career as a university professor and acquired Canadian citizenship.
He debuted as a writer in 1967, publishing a collection of poems entitled The Dainty Monsters.. followed The Man With Seven Toes (1969) and Rat Jelly (1973) until Ondaatje was finally recognized when he appeared with The Collected Works Of Billy The Kid (1970), a work that earned him a literary prize awarded annually by the Canadian governor. He repeated this feat in 1979 with the work There's A Trick With A Knife I'm Learning To Do (1963-78).
In 1976 he published his first novel, Coming Through Slaughter, in which he told the story of a jazz musician from 1930s New Orleans. The work, winner of a literary prize, was followed by Running in the Family (1982), a work of an autobiographical nature, and by In The Skin Of A Lion (1987), in which Ondaatje reflected on the phenomenon of immigration. In 1992, Ondaatje published the work that became his best known, The English Patient (The English Patient). Winner of, among other awards, the Booker Prize, the novel described a love story during the Second World War. It was adapted into a film and, proving to be a huge box office success, received an Academy Award for Best Picture.
In 1999, Ondaatje once again attracted the attention of the public and critics, with the publication of a volume of poems entitled HandwritingIn 2000, he published a fourth novel, Anil's Ghost, a work that reverted to his Sinhalese origins.

Michael Ondaatje. In Infopédia [Online]. Porto: Porto Editora, 2003-2011