His first novel, Coming Through Slaughter (1976), is a fictional portrait of jazz musician Buddy Bolden. His collections of poetry include The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems (1981), which won the Canadian Governor General's Award in 1971 The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems (1989) and Handwriting: Poems (1998). He published a volume of memoir, Running in the Family, in 1983. He was educated at the University of Toronto and Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and began teaching at York University in Toronto in 1971.

He moved to England in 1954, and in 1962 moved to Canada where he has lived ever since. Also included are Margaret Atwood on sex and death in the scandalous Doctor Glas, first published in Sweden in 1905 Russell Banks on the off-beat travelogue Too Late to Turn Back by Barbara Greene?the ?slightly ditzy? cousin of Graham Bill Richardson on a children?s book for adults by Russell Hoban Ronald Wright on William Golding?s Pincher Martin Caryl Phillips on Michael Mac Liammoir?s account of his experiences on the set of Orson Welles?s Othello, and much, much more.Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka on 12 September 1943. As the editors have written in a joint introduction to the book, ?being lovers of books, we?ve pulled a scent of these absences behind us our whole reading lives, telling people about books that exist only on our own shelves, or even just in our own memory.? Anyone who has ever been changed by a book will find kindred spirits in the pages of Lost Classics.Each of the editors has contributed a lost book essay to this collection, including Michael Ondaatje on Sri Lankan filmmaker Tissa Abeysekara?s Bringing Tony Home, a novella about a mutual era of childhood.

An Anchor Books OriginalSeventy-four distinguished writers tell personal tales of books loved and lost?great books overlooked, under-read, out of print, stolen, scorned, extinct, or otherwise out of commission.Compiled by the editors of Brick: A Literary Magazine, Lost Classics is a reader?s delight: an intriguing and entertaining collection of eulogies for lost books.

Lost Classics by Michael Ondaatje