A Year of Last Things

After a break of nearly 20 years, Ondaatje has returned to poetry, ruminating on sliding doors moments in life… This is a generous, moving book * Guardian *Extraordinarily attuned to hauntings… Ondaatje is a connoisseur – and creator – of atmospheres… Wonderful * Observer, Poetry Book of the Month *Each new book of Michael Ondaatje’s is a literary event, but that is particularly true for his books of poetry. In A Year of Last Things he comes close to writing something like a timeless poem, “a memory poem” that reflects outside and inside time at the same moment, recording the mercurial, mysterious feeling of being alive. The poems become intimate, unresolved stories, loyal to feeling and presence, the lyricism of dreams applied to narratives of lives and landscapes. A Year of Last Things is a remarkable, incomparable new collection – Terrance Hayes, author of So to SpeakMichael Ondaatje’s love of the world and its wonders, the kindness he offers, the elegant lyricism of his sentences, the joy of storytelling… restore belief in the beauty and power of literature and, by extension, of humanity – Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Lazarus ProjectMichael Ondaatje defies the normal distinction between poet and novelist. His writing is consistently tuned to a visionary pitch – Graham Swift, author of WaterlandMy life always stops for a new book by Michael Ondaatje – Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The NamesakeDazzling…This collection radiates the joy of a fully realized, literary life * Publishers Weekly *A Year of Last Things contains moments of great skill… Ondaatje has a special knack for sensation and for conveying the feeling of something inexorably being taken away * Times Literary Supplement *

Michael Ondaatje is the author of seven novels; a memoir, Running in the Family; a non-fiction book on film, The Conversations- Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film; and several books of poetry, including The Cinnamon Peeler and Handwriting. The English Patient received the Booker Prize in 1992 and the Golden Man Booker in 2018, and was made into a film directed by Anthony Minghella. Anil’s Ghost was awarded the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, the Giller Prize and the Prix Medicis. Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto.