{"title":"Michael Ondaatje","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichael Ondaatje’s fiction and poetry weave rich tapestries of memory, history, and identity, inviting readers into worlds where the past and present intertwine with lyrical grace. His novels often explore complex characters against backdrops of political and cultural upheaval, blending imagination with precise, evocative prose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the haunting landscapes of \u003cem\u003eThe English Patient\u003c\/em\u003e to the intimate reflections found in \u003cem\u003eRunning in the Family\u003c\/em\u003e, Ondaatje’s works cross genres with ease, encompassing elements of historical fiction, memoir, and poetic narrative. His writing offers profound insights into the human experience, making his collection a treasured journey through art, history, and personal exploration. \u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"running-in-the-family","title":"Running in the Family","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRunning in the Family\u003c\/em\u003e is Michael Ondaatje's exquisite blend of memoir and historical portrait, painting a vivid picture of his family's past within the lush backdrop of Sri Lanka. The narrative begins with a haunting sense of longing and curiosity that compels the author to return to his homeland after spending twenty-five years in the starkly different climate of Ontario, Canada. What follows is a rich tapestry of memories, family lore, and uncovered truths, seamlessly woven together to reveal the complexities and eccentricities of the Ondaatje lineage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDriven by a chaotic dream filled with tropical heat and the cacophony of barking dogs, Ondaatje embarks on a deeply personal journey to comprehend the family history that has shaped his life. He delves into the layers of his father's destructive alcoholism, the turbulent and often flamboyant lives of his ancestors, and the deeply ingrained traditions and societal expectations of Sri Lankan culture. Through a combination of rumour, anecdote, poetry, and recorded memories, he reconstructs the fragmented past with a meticulous attention to detail.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe memoir is a sensory immersion into the sights, sounds, and textures of Sri Lankan life. Ondaatje's prose vividly captures the exotic beauty of the island's landscape, from its lush foliage to the opalescent light that dances over its waters. His descriptions evoke the intense heat, the vibrant wildlife, and the culturally rich soundscape of his homeland, creating an evocative setting that is both enchanting and tumultuous.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs Ondaatje recounts the lives of a privileged yet eccentric older generation, he portrays a wide range of characters—each with their own blend of charm and tragedy. His narrative is replete with both adoration and critique, illuminating the patchwork of stories that define his family. He explores his own ghosts, reconciling his personal history with the broader narrative of his ancestors' lives, and grapples with how their legacies continue to influence his present.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRunning in the Family\u003c\/em\u003e is a poignant exploration of identity, heritage, and the passage of time. It is a remarkable achievement that transcends the traditional bounds of memoir, offering a kaleidoscopic view of family history that is at once intimate and universal. Through Ondaatje's masterful storytelling, readers are invited into a world where the past is ever-present, and the journey of self-discovery is beautifully intertwined with the rediscovery of one's roots.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45692339519724,"sku":"9781784877811","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781784877811.jpg?v=1725558235"},{"product_id":"coming-through-slaughter-by-michael-ondaatje-9781784877828","title":"Coming Through Slaughter","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMichael Ondaatje's incredible debut novel of Jazz and strife, published for the first time in Vintage Classics alongside his memoir, \u003cem\u003eRunning in the Family\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDiscover Michael Ondaatje's debut novel, \u003cem\u003e'a beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written'\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBased on the life of cornet player Buddy Bolden, one of the legendary jazz pioneers of turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans, \u003cem\u003eComing Through Slaughter\u003c\/em\u003e is an extraordinary recreation of a remarkable musical life and a tragic conclusion. Through a collage of memoirs, interviews, imaginary conversations and monologues, Ondaatje builds a picture of a man who would work by day at a barber shop and by night unleash his talent to wild audiences who had never experienced such playing. But Buddy was also playing the field with two women, and inside his head was a ticking time-bomb which he was unable to stop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46271906185452,"sku":"9781784877828","price":27.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781784877828.jpg?v=1742262302"},{"product_id":"the-cats-table-by-michael-ondaatje-9780099554424","title":"The Cat's Table","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the acclaimed author of \u003cem\u003eThe English Patient\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eIn the Skin of a Lion\u003c\/em\u003e comes a stunningly beautiful and moving new novel about a boy's life-changing journey from Ceylon to England in the 1950s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat had there been before such a ship in my life? A dugout canoe on a river journey? A launch in Trincomalee harbour? There were always fishing boats on our horizon. But I could never imagine the grandeur of this castle that was to cross the sea.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner in Colombo bound for England. At mealtimes, he is seated at the lowly \u003cem\u003ecat's table\u003c\/em\u003e, as far from the Captain's table as can be, with a ragtag group of adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship crosses the Indian Ocean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, and at night they spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and fate a mystery that will haunt them forever...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46495768183020,"sku":"9780099554424","price":25.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780099554424.jpg?v=1748485113"},{"product_id":"warlight-by-michael-ondaatje-9781784708344","title":"Warlight","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA mesmerising new novel from the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eThe English Patient\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn elegiac novel set in post-WW2 London about memory, family secrets, and lies, from the internationally acclaimed author of \u003cem\u003eThe English Patient\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz. Fourteen-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends—men and women all who seem determined to protect Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA dozen years later, Nathaniel journeys through recollection, reality, and imagination to uncover all he didn't know or understand in that time, to piece together a story that feels something like the truth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'A novel of shadowy brilliance' - The Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Fiction as rich, as beautiful, as melancholy as life itself, written in the visionary language of memory' - Observer\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Ondaatje brilliantly threads the mysteries and disguises and tangled loyalties and personal yearnings of the secret world... I haven't read a better novel this year' - Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46505640689900,"sku":"9781784708344","price":28.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11698273482823.jpg?v=1748677302"},{"product_id":"a-year-of-last-things-by-michael-ondaatje-9781787335035","title":"A Year of Last Things","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith \u003cem\u003eA Year of Last Things\u003c\/em\u003e, acclaimed novelist Michael Ondaatje returns to poetry, looking back on a life of displacement and discovery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'My life always stops for a new book by him.'\u003c\/em\u003e - JHUMPA LAHIRI\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'A generous, moving book.'\u003c\/em\u003e - GUARDIAN\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBorn in Sri Lanka during the Second World War, Ondaatje was sent as a child to school in London and later moved to Canada. While he has lived there since, these poems reflect the life of a writer, traveller and watcher of the world - describing himself as a 'mongrel', someone born out of diverse cultures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere, rediscovering the influence of every border crossed, he moves back and forth in time, from a childhood in Sri Lanka to Molière's chair during his last stage performance, from icons in Bulgarian churches to the Californian coast and loved Canadian rivers, merging memory with the present. Looking back on a life of displacement and discovery, love and loss, he shares profound insights. As he writes in the opening poem:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eReading the lines he loves\u003cbr\u003e\nhe slips them into a pocket,\u003cbr\u003e\nwishes to die with his clothes\u003cbr\u003e\nfull of torn-free stanzas\u003cbr\u003e\nand the telephone numbers\u003cbr\u003e\nof his children in far cities\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePoetry - where language is made to work hardest and burns with a gem-like flame - is what Ondaatje has returned to in this intimate history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46542670725356,"sku":"9781787335035","price":30.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9879393482824.jpg?v=1749715451"},{"product_id":"the-collected-works-of-billy-the-kid-by-michael-ondaatje-9781529945683","title":"The Collected Works of Billy the Kid","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn award-winning reinterpretation of the life and death of infamous outlaw Billy the Kid, from Booker Prize-winning author Michael Ondaatje.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBooker Prize-winning author Michael Ondaatje invites you on a brutal, beautiful journey into the American West...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt twenty-one years old, Billy the Kid has killed a man for each year he's been alive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRoaming the blasted plains of the Wild West, he moves between friends, foes, and lovers, fighting to keep just one step ahead of the law. Yet in this twisted wasteland—a country of mad dogs, of sweat and gore and blinding heat—the sheriffs play dirty too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMelding prose, poetry, imagined interviews, and ephemeral photography, Ondaatje weaves together a lyrical reinterpretation of Billy's short, infamous existence, forming a portrait of a young man, and a young country, borne out of violence, threaded through with disaster, yet rich in wonder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e‘Ondaatje's language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets. This is literature, art.’\u003c\/em\u003e Annie Dillard\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e‘Ondaatje's eye for detail is wonderful and he uses it poetically, with superb restraint’\u003c\/em\u003e Larry McMurtry\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46671830679788,"sku":"9781529945683","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/e66d07e74ffeaf0c1f94a7099d3cf3d3.jpg?v=1752989369"},{"product_id":"the-english-patient-by-michael-ondaatje-9781526605900","title":"The English Patient","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWINNER OF THE GOLDEN MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e‘Magnificent' \u003cem\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'The best piece of fiction I've read in years' \u003cem\u003eIndependent on Sunday\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe final curtain is closing on the Second World War and in an abandoned Italian village. Hana, a nurse, tends to her sole remaining patient. 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As he writes in the opening poem:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n  Reading the lines he loves\u003cbr\u003e\n  he slips them into a pocket,\u003cbr\u003e\n  wishes to die with his clothes\u003cbr\u003e\n  full of torn-free stanzas\u003cbr\u003e\n  and the telephone numbers\u003cbr\u003e\n  of his children in far cities\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePoetry - where language is made to work hardest and burns with a gem-like flame - is what Ondaatje has returned to in this intimate history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47288367710444,"sku":"9781787335042","price":35.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/54f6deadb96d1d7060213892f58e97bb.jpg?v=1770633601"},{"product_id":"the-distance-of-a-shout-selected-poems-by-michael-ondaatje-9781787336315","title":"The Distance of a Shout: Selected Poems","description":"From independence movements in Sri Lanka to train stations in contemporary Ontario, an intimate and witty selection of Michael Ondaatje's most widely loved poems\n\nFrom independence movements in Sri Lanka to train stations in contemporary Ontario, an intimate and witty selection of Michael Ondaatje's most widely loved poems taken across fifty years\n\n'My life always stops for a new book by Michael Ondaatje' JHUMPA LAHIRI\n \nThrough poems that grow out of his profound understanding of the subtle complexities of life and relationships, of how we lose and find ourselves, Michael Ondaatje navigates his own past, beginning with memories of his childhood in Sri Lanka and his eccentric family, to his life in rural southern Ontario with its beloved rivers, celebrations of treasured friends, the close ties of children. \n\nOndaatje is one of the great poets of love, and here we follow him through the exhilarations of youth into that 'storm of music', the passionate, sensuous swerves of longing and desire, until we reach the calm of that moment when 'only a cloud's reflection holding you up \/ You swim into late afternoon'.\n \nThe Distance of a Shout offers us a glimpse into the interwoven life and art of one of our most cherished poets and novelists - a reminder itself of the power of great poetry to shine a light on living.\n\n'Each new book of Michael Ondaatje's is a literary event, but that is particularly true for his books of poetry' TERRANCE HAYES","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47288887247084,"sku":"9781787336315","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/3d9c5bd3d3120e74ddb083e562b69467.jpg?v=1770603593"},{"product_id":"in-the-skin-of-a-lion-by-michael-ondaatje-9781035091362","title":"In the Skin of a Lion","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA magical book. Michael Ondaatje defies the normal distinction between poet and novelist. His writing is consistently tuned to a visionary pitch. \u003cem\u003eGraham Swift\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt is the 1920s, and Patrick Lewis has arrived in the bustling city of Toronto, leaving behind his Canadian wilderness home. He immerses himself in the lives of the people who surround him, learning, from their stories, the history of the city itself. And he has his own adventures: searching for a missing millionaire, tunnelling beneath Lake Ontario, falling in love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn the Skin of a Lion\u003c\/em\u003e is Michael Ondaatje's sparkling predecessor to his Booker Prize-winning \u003cem\u003eThe English Patient\u003c\/em\u003e. It is here that we encounter, for the first time, Hana the orphaned girl and Caravaggio the thief, among a large cast of characters who are all lovingly and intimately portrayed. 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