The brilliant novelist, poet and literary innovator Michael Ondaatje was born on the island nation of Ceylon (now the independent republic of Sri Lanka) to parents of Indian and Dutch descent. When Ondaatje was nine his parents separated, and his mother took him, along with his brother and sister, to England. At 19, Ondaatje immigrated to Canada; he has since become a Canadian citizen. Ondaatje first won recognition as a poet. His collected poems, There’s a Trick With a Knife I’m Learning to Do, won the Governor-General’s Award, Canada’s highest literary prize, in 1979. He...