Christopher Ondaatje
Sir Philip Christopher Ondaatje, OC, CBE, ( born February 22, 1933, Kandy, Sri Lanka) is a native of Sri Lanka British- Canadian writer, philanthropist, adventurer, former entrepreneur and former participants in the Olympic Games. In 2007 he lived in Chester ( Nova Scotia ) in Canada. He is the brother of writer Michael Ondaatje.
Life
Christopher Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka, which is still called Ceylon at that time, the eldest son of a wealthy burgher family with Portuguese, Dutch, Sinhala and Tamil ancestors. In Ceylon he visited the St. Thomas School in Guruthalawa, from 1947 he was a student of a boarding school in Tiverton, Devon in the UK, Blundell 's School. After the independence of Ceylon in 1948, the family fortune quickly fell into disrepair, so Christopher had the school in 1951, leaving one year before graduating. In 1956 he emigrated to Canada and arrived in Toronto at virtually no money. From 1962 he worked for the Financial Post in Toronto. In Canada he founded together with business partners in 1970, the company Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon, Canada's first independent brokerage firm and earned as a trader a lot of money, so that he could build the family fortune quickly. He founded the Pagurian Press, which was later sold to the Bronfman family, and deserved so well in publishing good.
Ondaatje was a member of the Canadian bobsleigh team at the Olympic Winter Games 1964.
In Canada, he was known as a supporter of various charity organizations, including the Lakefield College School, Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, Dalhousie University, the National Ballet School, the Royal Ontario Museum ( with the Sir Christopher Ondaatje South Asian Gallery), the. Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Chester Playhouse
After many successful years in the profession, in which he was counted among the most aggressive and ruthless businessmen of Toronto, he gave up his business activities in 1995. He moved to the UK and had a very eventful life there, but continued to promote various organizations. So he traveled through India and Africa and also began, as his younger brother, the famous novelist Michael Ondaatje to write books. His books are about his travels and adventures experienced this.
In 2000, he financially supported the expansion of the National Portrait Gallery, in a wing named after him as Ondaatje Wing. These and other of his donations contributed in 2000 to his appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the British government as well as on his appointment as Knight by the Queen in June 2003. Moreover, he was in 1992, also with the highest Canadian award for civilians, the appointment of an Officer of the Order of Canada honored and appointed Senior Fellow of Massey College.
In his most recent book Hemingway in Africa, he sets out his views on life and motivation of Ernest Hemingway
Christopher Ondaatje is since 1959 married to his coming from Lithuania wife Valda and the couple have three children (David, Seira, Jans ).
Works
- Hemingway in Africa ( English)
- Leopard in the Afternoon - An Africa Tenting Safari (Paperback - 2006 ) (English)
- The Man -eater of Punanai - a Journey of Discovery to the Jungles of Old Ceylon (Paperback - 2006 ) (English)
- Woolf in Ceylon: An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf, 1904-1911 (2005 ) (English)
- Hemingway in Africa ( 2004) ( English)
- Journey to the Source of the Nile (Paperback - 1999 ) (English)
- Sindh Revisited (1996 ) (English)
- The Prime Minister of Canada, 1867-1967 (1968 ) (English)