Common Novel program to feature Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje

RIT's Common Novel program brings famed Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje to campus at 7:30 p.m. on Wed., Jan. 15, in Webb Auditorium, Frank E. Gannett Building. He will talk about his 1987 novel In the Skin of a Lion—RIT's chosen 199698 "must read" book for freshmen and sophomores.

Michael Ondaatje

Also author of The English Patient, novel-turned-blockbuster movie which Time magazine (Dec. 23 issue) ranked number one for 1996, Ondaatje has made his own films and written plays, a memoir and books of poetry. His poetry collection The Cinnamon Peeler and novels The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion will be sold by RIT's Campus Connections bookstore before and after the lecture at a table in front of the auditorium. The author will sign books for part of the post-lecture reception.

Ondaatje, an England-educated Ceylon native who immigrated to Canada, won both the esteemed Booker Prize and Canada's Governor General's Award. He first became well known in the U.S. for his writings on outlaw Billy the Kid and "crazed" New Orleans jazz musician Buddy Bolden.

With In the Skin of a Lion, the author examines an historical theme of unsung and abused working class people, many of them immigrants, explains Sandra Saari, chair of Language and Literature and coordinator of the Common Novel program. "Ondaatje drew from The Epic of Gilgamesh from 2,000 B.C. Babylonia, where the metaphorical lion's skin comes from," she adds.

Upcoming RIT speakers who will each lecture on In the Skin of a Lion at 1 p.m. in Webb Auditorium, James E. Booth Building, (free and public) are:

Jan. 21; Joseph Nassar, chair of the Humanities Division, College of Liberal Arts, "In the Skin of a Lion: Whose Story?"
Jan. 28; Paul Petersen, dean of the College of Engineering, to talk about the novel in terms of "bridge-building."