A year of last things

Michael Ondaatje

£14.99

Available on back-order

Born 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 here 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. Here, rediscovering the influence of every border crossed, he moves back and forth in time, from a childhood in Sri Lanka to Moliere’s chair during his last stage performance, from icons in Bulgarian churches to the California coast and loved Canadian rivers, merging memory with the present, looking back on a life of displacement and discovery, love and loss. At first sight it is a glittering collection of fragments and memories – but small, intricate pieces of a life are precisely what matter most to Ondaatje. They make an emotional history.

ISBN: 9781787335035 Category:

Description

With A Year of Last Things, acclaimed novelist Michael Ondaatje returns to poetry, looking back on a life of displacement and discovery

‘My life always stops for a new book by him’ JHUMPA LAHIRI, author of The Namesake

‘Timeless… Remarkable, incomparable’ TERRANCE HAYES, author of So to Speak

Born 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.

Here, 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. 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 in this intimate history.

Additional information

Weight 0.242 kg
Dimensions 22.4 × 14.2 × 1.4 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

128

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

811.54 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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