Across the literary pages | 30 August 2011

Robert McCrum profiles Michael Ondaatje to coincide with the publication of Ondaatje’s latest novel, The Cat’s Table.

‘The eyes of Michael Ondaatje, prize-winning author of The English Patient, are a baffling window on the inner man: the brilliant, pale sapphires of a witty Dutch burgher set in a 68-year-old Tamil frame. As he says of himself and his work, “I am a mongrel of place. Of race. Of cultures. Of many genres.” An interview with Ondaatje is a playful compendium of anecdote, on-the-hoof cultural criticism and crafty conversational shape-shifting. “Charm” is a dangerous word, but an hour or two with Michael Ondaatje is a beguiling experience.


The more you look, the more dizzyingly kaleidoscopic he seems to become: a Canadian citizen who remains profoundly Sri Lankan. A winner of the Booker prize who first made his name as a poet. An admirer of Robert Browning and Thomas Wyatt who finds his deepest inspiration in the aesthetic traditions of the East.