Writer Michael Ondaatje, bestselling author of The English Patient, will read from his work March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel. Open free to the public, the event is sponsored by UGA’s Creative Writing Program, the President’s Venture Fund, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, Regents Professor of English Judith Ortiz Cofer and the department of English.
Although Ondaatje is best known as a novelist, his work also encompasses memoir, poetry and film. The English Patient-later made into an Academy Award-winning film-explores the stories of four diverse lives intersecting at the end of World War II.
Born in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje attended school in England before moving to Canada in 1962. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and master’s degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, he taught at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, and later, at York University and Glendon College in Toronto.