The Ondaatje Letters (1729-1737), are the earliest examples of private correspondence in Tamil prose and most probably in any languages of South Asia. It is preserved at the Cape Town Archive Repositories, South Africa. The correspondence is between one Nicolaas Ondaatje (in Tamil, Ukantācci), a Chettiyar from Colombo, Sri Lanka who was sent to the Cape of Good Hope for ten years as a punishment by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). There are up to 50 letters addressed to Nicolaas by his family members and friends from Sri Lanka although his replies have not been preserved.
The letters consist mainly of family matters like births and deaths, caste rules, ideas on rehabilitation to get back to Sri Lanka. The letters are noted for their ungrammatical construction, lack of punctuation and many loan words from Sanskrit, Persian, Portuguese and Dutch.[citation needed]
The members of the Ondaatje family, originally hailing from Tamil Nadu, India made their home in Southern Sri Lanka. They have for several centuries functioned as mediators between the colonial powers and the local people. Nicolaas, a prominent member of the trading caste generally known as Chettys in Southern India and Sri Lanka, lived as a free man at the Cape during his stay. He was proficient in Tamil, Dutch and Sinhalese. He was trader, accountant, physician, interpreter and schoolmaster. Nicolaas died just before his exile ended. He is considered to be a direct ancestor of authors Michael Ondaatje and Christopher Ondaatje.[1][2]
^"Research Theme: Ondaatje Letters (1729-1737). Private correspondence in Tamil from the beginning of the 18th century". Leiden University. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
^"The Chetty 'Olanders'". The Hindu. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
The OndaatjeLetters (1729-1737), are the earliest examples of private correspondence in Tamil prose and most probably in any languages of South Asia....
Michael Ondaatje CC FRSL (/ɒnˈdɑːtʃiː/; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist. Ondaatje's literary...
Sir Philip Christopher Ondaatje, Earl of Rothes OC, CBE, FRSL (/ɒnˈdɑːtʃi/; born 22 February 1933) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian–English businessman, philanthropist...
including works by R. K. Narayan, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Michael Ondaatje, Peter Matthiessen, and Isamu Noguchi. He has appeared seven times in the...
Bowman, Dr. Wade Davis, Michael Palin, Dr. Phil Currie, and Sir Christopher Ondaatje. The RCGS publishes an award-winning English-language magazine, Canadian...
p624. Norman, Neil (27 August 2010). "Darling of the Day: Lost Musicals, Ondaatje Wing Theatre, The National Portrait Gallery". Daily Express. Retrieved...
ISBN 978-0-87417-811-1. Christian Bök (2003). "Codex Seraphinianus". In Michael Ondaatje (ed.). Lost Classics. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 0-7475-6175-3. Jeff Stanley...
administers a number of literary prizes and awards, including the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards for Non-Fiction, the RSL Encore Award...
the original on August 16, 2021. Retrieved June 21, 2021 – via JSTOR. Ondaatje, Michael L. (2010). Black Conservative Intellectuals in Modern America...
by author Christopher Ondaatje. This is an unusual "in-the-footsteps of" book by the elder brother of novelist Michael Ondaatje. It is possible that Leonard...
figures which over the years have included Saul Bellow, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Mordecai Richler. Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Remains of the Day, has...
the doomed Viking King Eric Bloodaxe. The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize is an annual literary award given by the Royal Society of Literature...
Winners of the Amazon.ca First Novel Award 1970s Ian McLachlan and Michael Ondaatje (1977) Oonah McFee (1978) Joan Barfoot (1979) 1980s Clark Blaise (1980)...
was awarded celebrating 50 years of the award; this was won by Michael Ondaatje for The English Patient. 2* Awarded in 2010 as the Lost Man Booker Prize...
of its 10 notable books of 2006. It won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the Spirit of Scotland award, and the Premio de Literatura de Viaje...
Little Criminals Michael Ondaatje 1943 novelist, poet The English Patient, In the Skin of a Lion, Anil's Ghost Christopher Ondaatje 1933 writer, publisher...
awarded the Costa Book Award for Biography, Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2011 and Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Non-Fiction in...
Cookbook : Recipes for Life, Love and Art is a 2014 book by British author Jans Ondaatje Rolls, published by Thames & Hudson. The Bloomsbury Cookbook is described...
from its drafts. In a conversation with film editor Walter Murch, Michael Ondaatje compared the creative writing process of "One Art", "In literature, even...
spring 2014. It was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. Rausing is also the author of Mayhem: A Memoir (2017), which shortlisted...
on film editing, In the Blink of an Eye, and is the subject of Michael Ondaatje's book The Conversations. Famed movie critic Roger Ebert called Murch "the...
George Lamming, and in the novel The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje, as the place where the sapper Kip learned how to deactivate bombs. Michael...
the Country of Men[citation needed] 2007: Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize for In the Country of Men[citation needed] 2007: Commonwealth Writers'...
as J. M. Coetzee, Maryse Condé, Earl Lovelace, V. S. Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and Lasana M. Sekou. For recent post-colonial...
Global Information