New Releases by Michael Ondaatje

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2026 A one-of-a-kind collection gathering fifty years of poetry by one of our most cherished authors. In The Distance of a Shout, Michael Ondaatje has assembled some of his finest poems into a singular poetic memoir that invokes the arc of his own journey over fifty years. Through poems that grow out of his profound understanding of how we lose and find ourselves, Michael Ondaatje navigates his own past, beginning with memories of his childhood in Sri Lanka and his eccentric family, to his life in rural southern Ontario with its beloved rivers, celebrations of treasured friends, the close ties of children. We follow him through the exhilarations of youth and into that “storm of music,” the passionate swerves of longing and desire, until we reach the calm of that moment when, with “only a cloud’s reflection holding you up, You swim into late afternoon.” The Distance of a Shout offers us a glimpse into the interwoven life and art of one of our most cherished poets and novelists—and is itself a reminder of the power of poetry to shine a light on living.

Van de auteur van Golden Booker Prize-winnaar De Engelse patiënt 1946. Londen krabbelt op uit de Blitz. De veertienjarige Nathaniel en zijn zus Rachel worden door hun moeder Rose achtergelaten bij een mysterieuze voogd, bijgenaamd De Mot. Aanvankelijk denken ze dat hij een crimineel is, maar in de chaotische naoorlogse jaren groeien ze op in de excentrieke wereld die hij om hen heen schept, vol zonderlinge vrienden die op ongewone wijze voor hen zorgen. Twintig jaar later kijkt Nathaniel terug en ontrafelt hij niet alleen de geheimzinnige rol van De Mot, maar ook het grote raadsel rond de verdwijning van zijn moeder. In deze roman weeft meesterstilist Michael Ondaatje werkelijkheid, herinnering en verbeelding tot een meeslepend geheel. 'Een meesterwerk.' De Standaard der Letteren 'Prachtige dromerige sfeer.' NRC Handelsblad 'Een betoverende leeservaring.' Het Parool

From one of the most influential writers of his generation, a gorgeously surprising poetry collection about memory, history, and the act of looking back Following several of his internationally acclaimed novels, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje’s long-awaited return to poetry. In pieces that are sometimes witty, sometimes moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and the abandoned landscapes we hold on to to rediscover the influence of every border crossed. Moving from a Sri Lankan boarding school to Molière’s chair during his last stage performance, to Bulgarian churches and their icons, to the California coast and his beloved Canadian rivers, Michael Ondaatje casts a brilliant eye that merges memory with the present, in the way memory as the distant shores of art and lost friends continue to influence everything that surrounds him. From his poem "His chair, a narrow bed, a motel room, the fox": At the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles Sam Cooke was shot dead. ‘See that shadow on the wall . . .’ All those motels and hotels in literature and song, where X wrote this, where Y got drunk, where Z overdosed. The one Hank Williams was driven past, dead already in his car. The Slavianski Bazaar Hotel in "The Lady with a Dog," where Dmitri imagines their dark but hopeful future. The Hôtel de ville de Courtrai, where Verlaine shot Rimbaud. The Casa Verdi in Milan, where retired opera singers were welcomed along with various heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa in their afterlife.

With contributions by: William Boyd, Candice Carty-Williams, Imtiaz Dharker, Roddy Doyle, Pico Iyer, Robert Macfarlane, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Jan Morris, Sisonke Msimang, Dina Nayeri, Chigozie Obioma, Michael Ondaatje, David Pilling, Max Porter, Philip Pullman, Alice Pung, Jancis Robinson, S.F.Said, Madeleine Thien, Salley Vickers, John Wood and Markus Zusak 'This story, like so many stories, begins with a gift. The gift, like so many gifts, was a book...' So begins the essay by Robert Macfarlane that inspired this collection. In this cornucopia of an anthology, you will find essays by some of the world's most beloved novelists, nonfiction writers, essayists and poets. 'You will see books taking flight in flocks, migrating around the world, landing in people's hearts and changing them for a day or a year or a lifetime. 'You will see books sparking wonder or anger; throwing open windows into other languages, other cultures, other minds; causing people to fall in love or to fight for what is right. 'And more than anything, over and over again, you will see books and words being given, received and read - and in turn prompting further generosity.' Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of global literacy non-profit, Room to Read, The Gifts of Reading forms inspiring, unforgettable, irresistible proof of the power and necessity of books and reading. Inspired by Robert Macfarlane Curated by Jennie Orchard

«Un romanzo incandescente e indelebile... di pericolosa bellezza.» USA Today «Domina un'aura poetica, mai stucchevole, che riesce a dire tutto, o quasi, sul lutto, la solitudine, il dolore, l'amicizia.» Sette - Corriere della Sera Dopo lungo tempo, Anil Tissera torna nello Sri Lanka, dove è nata e che ha lasciato al termine della scuola, in qualità di medico legale per conto di una commissione per i diritti umani. Deve dimostrare che, in un paese straziato dalla guerra civile, a uccidere e compiere atti terroristici non sono solo i ribelli, ma anche uomini legati al governo che torturano e fanno scomparire i presunti oppositori. A tale scopo Anil collabora con un archeologo locale, Sarath Diyasena, ma ad attrarla è piuttosto il fratello minore di Sarath, Gamini: è medico come lei, ma si occupa dei vivi, degli scampati, da qualunque parte stiano. Nel primo romanzo scritto dopo Il paziente inglese, Michael Ondaatje conferma le sue straordinarie doti di narratore. Attraverso le vicende di individui che cercano la propria verità in un paese bello e infelice, Lo spettro di Anil esplora i temi eterni dell’amore e del tradimento, ma si confronta anche con la realtà contemporanea nei suoi aspetti più crudi e controversi. Con una scrittura insieme precisa e sinuosa, con la sua inimitabile capacità di penetrare il labirinto delle emozioni, di cogliere la bellezza di un paesaggio o l’intensità di un silenzio, Ondaatje riesce a trasmetterci la verità profonda dell’esperienza umana, sospesa tra mito e mistero; quella verità che forse possiamo incontrare solo attraverso un sapiente gioco di allusioni, come in un evanescente riflesso.

Llega una nueva y aclamada novela del célebre autor de El paciente inglés . Una obra cumbre sobre la guerra, la adolescencia y la memoria. «Una nueva obra maestra de Michael Ondaatje .» Anna Mundow , The Washington Post La nueva novela de Michael Ondaatje, galardonado en 2018 con el Booker de Oro al mejor libro de la historia de este premio, es un relato hipnótico y profundo sobre los lúgubres años que siguieron al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El relato que hace Nathaniel de su infancia y adolescencia tras la sospechosa partida de sus padres hacia Singapur está compuesto por los destellos, los restos y los recuerdos ensamblados de una época en la que, junto a su hermana, entra en contacto con un pequeño grupo de personajes de dudosa procedencia e intenciones poco claras. Quizá criminales, quizá agentes políticos, todos ellos conforman una incierta y problemática red de relaciones. El peso grave de la guerra, la omnipresencia de las ausencias familiares y su influencia sobre estas vidas subterráneas cobran aquí un efecto casi mágico que hacen que en Luz de guerra también la oscuridad brille. La crítica ha dicho... «Una crónica de la orfandad. Una búsqueda de la identidad. Una excursión por el zoo humano que transita entre el sentido del humor y el thriller desde los presupuestos de una prosa deslumbrante.» Rubén Amón, El Confidencial «Una novela inolvidable y brillante [...]. Puede que sea la mejor novela de Ondaatje hasta la fecha.» Publishers Weekly «Este es un libro rico en detalles [...]. Una novela intrincada y absorbente.» Penelope Lively, The New York Times Review of Books «Si los escritores son cartógrafos del corazón, la obra de Michael Ondaatje podría llenar un atlas. [...] Luz de guerra es una danza compleja de anhelos y engaño y una singular oda al vínculo entre madre e hijo.» Hamilton Cain, O Magazine «[Ondaatje]lanza un encantamiento mágico mientras te lleva a un mundo en penumbras de guerra y amor, muerte y pérdida, y los oscuros cauces del pasado.» Hermione Lee, New York Review of Books «Una nueva obra maestra de Michael Ondaatje [...]. Luz de guerra es un mosaico de fragmentos tan inteligentemente ensamblados que el patrón parece tan inevitable como armonioso.[...] En Luz de guerra todo está iluminado, al principio levemente, luego de maneradirecta, pero siempre brillante.» Anna Mundow, The Washington Post «Un misterio lírico que se desarrolla a la sombra de la Segunda Guerra Mundial [...]. La hábil personalidad de Ondaatje se despliega en un drama inteligente y sofisticado, uno que ha hecho que la merezca la pena la espera para los fans de las intrigas de los tiempos de guerra.» Kirkus Review « Luz de guerra es una obra maestra de los desplazamientos de la memoria.» Bethanne Patrick, The San Diego Union-Tribune «Michael Ondaatje está en la cima de sus capacidades [...]. Luz de guerra me ha absorbido más que cualquier otra novela que pueda recordar; cuando levanté la mirada, me sorprendió ver que seguíamos en el siglo XXI.» Alex Preston, The Guardian

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the internationally acclaimed, Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient: “an elegiac thriller [with] the immediate allure of a dark fairy tale” (The Washington Post) set in the decade after World War II that tells the dramatic story of two teenagers and an eccentric group of characters. In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself—shadowed and luminous at once—we read the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey—through facts, recollection, and imagination—that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.

Con inusitada belleza e inteligencia, Michael Ondaatje traza la intersección en los últimos días de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y en una villa italiana abandonada, de cuatro vidas dañadas. Ganadora del Golden Man Booker Prize 2018, el único de la historia. Hana, una enfermera agotada por la muerte que la rodea, se dedica obsesivamente a su último paciente. Caravaggio, el ladrón, intenta volver a imaginar quién es ahora que sus manos están irremediablemente mermadas. Kip, el rastreador de minas indio, busca artefactos ocultos en un paisaje donde nadie está a salvo excepto él. En el centro de este laberinto descansa el paciente inglés, completamente abrasado, un hombre sin nombre que es un acertijo y una provocación para sus compañeros, y cuyos recuerdos de traición, dolor y salvación iluminan la novela como destellos de luz ardiente. ** Con motivo del 50 aniversario del Man Booker Prize, el más prestigioso premio de literatura del mundo anglófono, se concedió por única vez el Golden Man Booker Prize. El jurado del Premio Man Booker y el público eligieron la mejor de las 51 obras premiadas en el pasado... y optaron por esta novela de Michael Ondaatje, El paciente inglés. Reseñas: « El paciente inglés logra la triple corona: es profunda, bella y apasionante.» Toni Morrison «Más que una novela, es una alfombra mágica que nos traslada a través de épocas y geografías... Una red de sueños extraordinarios y cautivadora.» Time

Aus den tiefen Wäldern Kanadas kommt Patrick Lewis in den zwanziger Jahren nach Toronto, in die Stadt, die vor Vitalität aus allen Nähten platzt. Zunächst ein Fremder im eigenen Land, wächst er rasch in eine immer unüberschaubarer werdende Welt hinein.

Michael Ondaatje’s selected poems, The Cinnamon Peeler, brings together poems written between 1963 and 1990, including work from his most recent collection, Secular Love. These poems bear witness to the extraordinary gifts that have won high praise for this truly original poet and novelist.

"Tumultuous, vibrant, tragic and over too soon." --Newsday Handwriting is Michael Ondaatje's first new book of poetry since The Cinnamon Peeler. The exquisite poems collected here draw on history, mythology, landscape, and personal memories to weave a rich tapestry of images that reveal the longing for--and expose the anguish over--lost loves, homes, and language, as the poet contemplates scents and gestures and evokes a time when "handwriting occurred on waves, / on leaves, the scripts of smoke" and remembers a woman's "laughter with its / intake of breath. Uhh huh." Crafted with lyrical delicacy and seductive power, Handwriting reminds us of Michael Ondaatje's stature as one of the finest poets writing today.

Bringing to life the fabulous, colorful panorama of New Orleans in the first flush of the jazz era, this book tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the first of the great trumpet players--some say the originator of jazz--who was, in any case, the genius, the guiding spirit, and the king of that time and place. In this fictionalized meditation, Bolden, an unrecorded father of Jazz, remains throughout a tantalizingly ungraspable phantom, the central mysteries of his life, his art, and his madness remaining felt but never quite pinned down. Ondaatje's prose is at times startlingly lyrical, and as he chases Bolden through documents and scenes, the novel partakes of the very best sort of modern detective novel--one where the enigma is never resolved, but allowed to manifest in its fullness. Though more 'experimental' in form than either The English Patient or In the Skin of a Lion, it is a fitting addition to the renowned Ondaatje oeuvre.

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the "cat's table"--As far from the Captain's Table as can be--with a ragtag group of "insignificant" adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as well: one man talks with them about jazz and women, another opens the door to the world of literature. The narrator's elusive, beautiful cousin Emily becomes his confidante, allowing him to see himself "with a distant eye" for the first time, and to feel the first stirring of desire. Another Cat's Table denizen, the shadowy Miss Lasqueti, is perhaps more than what she seems. And very late every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and his fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever. As the narrative moves between the decks and holds of the ship and the boy's adult years, it tells a spellbinding story--by turns poignant and electrifying--about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage.

'During certain hours, at certain years in our lives, we see ourselves as remnants from the earlier generations that were destroyed... I think all of our lives have been terribly shaped by what went on before us.' Twenty-five years after leaving his native Sri Lanka for the cool winters of Ontario, a chaotic dream of tropical heat and barking dogs pushes Michael Ondaatje to travel back home and revisit a childhood and a family he never fully understood. Along with his siblings and children, Ondaatje gathers rumours, anecdotes, poems, records and memories to piece together this fragmented portrayal of his family's past, his father's destructive alcoholism and the colourful stories and secrets of ancestors both disgraced and adored throughout centuries of Sri Lankan society. In an exotic, evocative portrait of the heat, wildlife, sounds and silences of the Sri Lankan landscape, Ondaatje combines vivid recreations of a privileged, eccentric older generation with a deeply personal reconciliatory journey in which he explores his own ghosts, and how his family's extraordinary history continues to influence his life.

Michael Ondaatje's poems have been celebrated by readers and writers alike for containing some of the most memorable and moving verse written in the past half-century. "The Story" combines Ondaatje's sensual writing with watercolor illustrations by celebrated painter David Bolduc, making a unique item. Left-hand pages contain Bolduc's art while right-hand pages contain Ondaatje's poem -- both typeset and in the author's own handwriting. This elegant housing is a fitting accompaniment to Ondaatje's elegaic poem, which follows his larger themes -- love, memory, family, exile -- even as it unfolds into "our dismantled childhoods," and offers readers the opportunity to extend its narrative into their own lives.

These recorded consversations between highly acclaimed author Michael Ondaatje and veteran editor Walter Murch, two giants of their respective industries, elucidate the world of film from the inside out.

With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past–a story propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka’s landscape and ancient civilization, Anil’s Ghost is a literary spellbinder–Michael Ondaatje’s most powerful novel yet.