Michael Ondaatje is a novelist and poet. He was born in Sri Lanka and has lived in Canada since 1963. His works include The Cat’s Table, Divisadero, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, Anil’s Ghost, The English Patient, In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, and his memoir, Running in the Family. His collections of poetry include Secular Love, The Cinnamon Peeler, and Handwriting. He has made two documentary films: Sons of Captain Poetry, on the poet bpNichol, and The Clinton Special, about Theatre Passe Muraille’s The Farm Show. He is the current literature mentor in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, working with the Bulgarian writer Miroslav Penkov.