Michael Ondaatje Summary

Once a highly regarded denizen of a burgeoning Canadian literary scene in the early 1970s, Michael Ondaatje (born 1943) has since gone on to achieve international renown for his poetry and fiction. Hi... Read more

In the following essay, Kanaganayakam examines the representation of Sri Lankan culture in Running in the Family, discussing the personal and collective implications of the nation's colonial pa... Read more

In the following essay, Matthews connects the autobiographical elements of Running in the Family with conventional dramatic techniques in order to demonstrate the work's ritualized “perf... Read more

In the following interview, Ondaatje discusses his decision to profile film editor Walter Murch in The Conversations, drawing comparisons between the processes of film editing and fiction writing. ... Read more

In the following excerpt, Dunne examines Ondaatje's discussions with Walter Murch in The Conversations, detailing the contributions of Murch and other film and sound editors to the movie indust... Read more

In the following review, O'Neill assesses the technique, language, and themes of Handwriting. When Hana plays the piano in Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient, she is describ... Read more

Critical Essay by Andreas Schroeder The many lamely constructed similes of Dainty Monsters and the often lurid lyric excesses of The Man With Seven Toes are a far cry from the more carefully crafted,... Read more

Critical Essay by William Logan Compared to the creative mythologizing of Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid …, his selected poems [in There's a Trick with a Knife I... Read more

Critical Essay by Charles Molesworth ["There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1963–1978" is] filled with odd angles of vision, but it lacks the kind... Read more

Critical Essay by Mark Abley [There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do] contains the best of two of Ondaatje's earlier collections, published in 1967 and 1973 [The Dainty ... Read more

Critical Essay by Bharati Mukherjee Michael Ondaatje … has set himself apart from [the dogmatic certainty of much mainstream Canadian writing]. He works by suggesting the final unknowability o... Read more

Critical Essay by Gary Draper Each new book by Michael Ondaatje seems wholly different from those that preceded it, and wholly the same. [Running in the Family] is a family reminiscence…. A fa... Read more

In the following assessment of Dainty Monsters, Barbour praises Ondaatje's natural imagery, subtle narrative, and controlled language. [The Dainty Monsters] is the finest first book of poems... Read more

In the following essay, Solecki offers an explanatory overview of Ondaatje's the man with seven toes, arguing that the collection is “a pivotal book in Ondaatje's development.... Read more

In the following assessment of Secular Love, King-Edwards heralds Ondaatje's break “from reason and control” in the collection, but laments what she perceives as inconsistency in ... Read more

In the essay below, Harding-Russell discusses Ondaajte's handling of both myth and the artist figure in the early poem “Peter.” The critic asserts that, with “Peter,”... Read more

In the following essay, Barbour traces Ondaatje's poetic development from his first collection through There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do. Barbour discovers a trend i... Read more