Michael Ondaatje: An Overview

Biographical Materials

• Biography
• Chronology
• Critical Reception
• Works
  • Anil's Ghost Discussions
  • The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife and Other Poems -- Responses in Prose and Verse
  • Coming Through Slaughter (Discussions)
  • The English Patient -- Discussions
  • In the Skin of a Lion
  -- Discussions
  • Running in the Family -- Discussion

Contextual Materials

• Political and Social Contexts
  • Identity, nation, and Gender
  • The English Patient, "History," and the Other
  • Builders of Toronto in In the Skin of a Lion
  • Post-Nationalism and the Cinematic Apparatus in Minghella's Adaptation of The English Patient
  • Exploring Transnational Identities in Anil's Ghost
• Religion and Philosophy
• Representations of Buddhism in Anil's Ghost
• Literary Relations
  • Virtual Spaces of Postcoloniality: Rushdie and Ondaatje
  • Caryl Phillips and Ondaatje
  • Self-conscious Use of sources in In the Skin of a Lion
• History
  • Redefining Toronto's History in In the Skin of a Lion
  • Oral History and the Writing of the Other in Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion

Theme and Technique

• Setting
• Characterization
• Plot and Structure
  • Circular narration in In the Skin of a Lion
  • The English Patient and Altered States of Narrative
• Style, Genre, and Mode
  • Meta-fiction in In the Skin of a Lion
• Image, Symbol, and Motif
  • The desert
  • The Motif of the Collector and History in Ondaatje's Work
• Theme and Subject
  • Decentering Official History in In the Skin of a Lion
  • Historical Obliviousness in In the Skin of a Lion
  • The Representation of 'Race' in Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion
  • The English Patient and Rewriting History

Related Web Resources

• A Selected Bibliography of Critical Work about Michael Ondaatje (CLCWeb Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal)
• Michael Ondaatje (Boston University site)

Last modified 12 August 2004