Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
With A Year of Last Things, acclaimed novelist Michael Ondaatje returns to poetry, where he began his career over fifty years ago. It also marks his first return to the Vancouver Writers Fest since 2018. We are thrilled to connect the Booker Prize-winning author with Vancouver readers at this free Incite event.
Born in Sri Lanka during the Second World War, Ondaatje was sent as a child to school in London, and later moved to Canada. These poems reflect the life of a writer, traveller and watcher of the world—describing himself as a “mongrel,” someone born out of diverse cultures. Here, rediscovering the influence of every border crossed, he moves back and forth in time, looking back on a life of displacement and discovery, love and loss.
A Year of Last Things has already been named “Ondaatje’s finest.” (Quill & Quire) Hear mesmerizing readings from this new work, and a contemplative conversation between the celebrated Canadian author and his dear friend Jenny Penberthy, a renowned scholar in the field of modern poetry and poetics.