A Year of Last Things: from the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient

(Hardback)

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From the acclaimed Booker Prize-winning novelist, a gorgeous and most of all surprising poetry collection about memory, love, and the act of looking back From the acclaimed Booker Prize-winning novelist, a gorgeous and most of all surprising poetry collection about memory, love, and the act of looking back 'My life always stops for a new book by Michael Ondaatje' JHUMPA LAHIRI, author of The Namesake With A Year of Last Things, the acclaimed Booker-Prize-winning novelist Michael Ondaatje returns to poetry - where he began his career, over fifty years ago - and what a return it is. Born in Sri Lanka during the Second World War, Michael Ondaatje was sent alone to boarding school in London, and then ended up in Canada. Though he has lived there ever since, travel was set in his blood, and these poems reflect the life of a writer, traveller and watcher of the world. He has never conformed to Western traditions - always describing himself as 'a mongrel', someone who was born out of a truly diverse society. Looking back on a life of displacement and discovery, love and loss, this is a brave and extraordinary book. At first sight it is a glittering collection of fragments, moments and memories - but small, beautiful pieces of life are precisely what matter most to Ondaatje. They make an emotional history. As he writes in the opening poem- 'Reading the lines he loves /he slips them into a pocket, /wishes to die with his clothes /full of torn-free stanzas /and the telephone numbers /of his children in far cities.' Poetry - where language is made to work hardest, and burns with a gem-like flame - is what Ondaatje has returned to, and this is both an intimate personal record and a great artist's guide to beauty.

Reviews

My life always stops for a new book by Michael Ondaatje -- Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The Namesake
The way his novels are truly poetic, Ondaatje's thrilling poems often read like exquisite, unwritten Ondaatje novels * Independent on Sunday *
He is justly recognised as a master of literary craft -- Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain
Michael Ondaatje defies the normal distinction between poet and novelist. His writing is consistently tuned to a visionary pitch -- Graham Swift, author of Last Orders
A novelist with the heart of a poet * Chicago Tribune *

Author Bio

Michael Ondaatje is the author of seven novels, a memoir, a non-fiction book on film, and several books of poetry. The English Patient won the Booker Prize in 1992 and the Golden Man Booker in 2018; Anil's Ghost won the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, the Giller Prize, and the Prix Medicis. Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje now lives in Toronto.