“It was Anthony’s version of the same story,” said Ondaatje, who agreed with Minghella’s decision to focus on certain sections of the book and leave others out, such as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which “just didn’t work” on film.
Ondaatje had input on the film and helped craft early drafts of the screenplay, he told the crowd, but the final vision belonged to director Anthony Minghella. He has published numerous works of poetry and several novels, including “The English Patient” (1992), a Booker Prize co-winner that was adapted into an Oscar-winning film.ĭuring the program’s question-and-answer session, audience members were eager to hear more about the beloved book and how it was brought to the screen. At 18 he immigrated to Canada, where he studied at the University of Toronto and Queen’s University in Kingston while also finding his voice as a writer. Born in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje was raised mostly in England.
Ondaatje’s penchant for narrative driven by time, place, and circumstance may well be informed by his own childhood, which was shaped by his parents’ divorce, his Tamil, Dutch, and English heritage, and his ocean crossings in search of family and home. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
The people in the books “move forward,” said Ondaatje, “… but keep looking back.” Before the event begins, James Wood (from center), Claire Messud, and Michael Ondaatje gather their thoughts in the Memorial Church pews. In his opening remarks at Writers Speak at Memorial Church, Homi Bhabha noted that many of Michael Ondaatje’s stories explore “the persistent ghost of childhood … that earlier place to which we all belong, for better or for worse, for the rest of our lives.”Īs he took to the dais, Ondaatje looked at Bhabha, director of Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center, and said, “You read my mind.” The novelist then shared passages from three of his books: “In the Skin of a Lion,” “The Cat’s Table,” and “Divisadero.” Each excerpt contained vivid scenes viewed through the eyes of a child that were then recalled by the same character years later.
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