Divisadero

12 September 1943

Philip Michael Ondaatje (born 12 September 1943) is a Ceylon-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist. Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry: in 1967 he published *The Dainty Monsters,* and in 1970 the critically acclaimed *The Collected Works of Billy the Kid.* His novel *The English Patient* (1992), adapted as a film in 1996, received the Booker Prize in 1992. It later won the Golden Man Booker Prize as the best of the first 51 Booker Prize winners. Ondaatje has been "fostering new Canadian writing" with two decades' commitment to Coach House Press (ca. 1970–1990), where he edited, among other authors, Daphne Marrlatt's early poems. His editorial credits include the journ…