Ondaatje, Michael

Shy, gracious poet who became an international celebrity with the transformation of his Booker Prize-winning novel The English Patient into a mind-numbingly fatuous Academy Award-winning motion picture. Ondaatje’s only response to fame was to become even more shy and gracious, and to gain 20 pounds so the starlets wouldn’t hit on him. Twenty-five years from now, he’ll still be famous in Canada, but only amongst young writers, and then for writing a book titled Coming Through Slaughter, which radically widened the boundaries by which young Canadian writers were able to approach their craft.

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