 In 2018, Ondaatje won the Golden Man Booker Prize for "The English Patient".In addition to his literary writing, Ondaatje has been an important force in "fostering new Canadian writing" with two decades commitment to Coach House Press (around 1970–90), and his editorial credits on Canadian literary projects like the journal "Brick", and the "Long Poem Anthology" (1979), among others.Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, in 1943; he is of Dutch and Sinhalese ancestry, making him a Burgher.