Michael Ondaatje: powerhouse still in love with the pen

Michael Ondaatje is an acclaimed author and poet born in Sri Lanka, who has spent most of his life in Canada. His seminal novel The English Patient (1992) won both the Booker Prize, and the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and became a huge best seller. It was made into a film winning 9 Academy awards. This week The English Patient was named among the five books on the shortlist for the Golden Man Booker Prize, a one-off award for Man Booker Prize's 50th anniversary celebrations In his latest novel Warlight, Ondaatje explores the aftermath of WWII in London through the story of an abandoned brother and sister. The Washington Post described it as a quiet masterpiece.