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The last colonial : curious adventures and stories from a vanishing world / Christopher Ondaatje ; images by Ana Maria Pacheco ; introduction by Michael Holroyd.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Ondaatje, Christopher.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Ondaatje, Christopher.
- Adventure and adventurers.
- Great Britain--Colonies--History.
- Great Britain.
- Colonies.
- History.
- Physical Description:
- 256 pages : color illustrations ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- London : Thames & Hudson, 2011.
- Summary:
- Christopher Ondaatje is a true child of the British Empire. Born in Ceylon in 1933 and brought up on a tea plantation, he was sent as a teenager to boarding school in England. But soon after Ceylon was granted its independence in 1948, his family found themselves destitute, and the young Ondaatje left school and got a job. In 1956 he made his way to Canada with just thirteen dollars in his pocket. From this improbable beginning there followed a series of commercial triumphs until 1988 when he abruptly abandoned high finance at the peak of his career and reinvented himself as an explorer and author, focusing mainly on the colonial period.It is the curious encounters behind these often precarious adventures that make up The Last Colonial.
- Contents:
- Mike White's Imperial Jazz Band 21
- A Christmas Crisis 39
- Olympic Victory 45
- 'Suicide' Birds 65
- The Man-Eater of Punanai 71
- The Gardens of Taprobane 85
- Murder in Ceylon 91
- Chandrasena's Revenge 99
- A Tea Planter's Story 105
- The Devil Bird 111
- A White Crow 121
- The Human Leopard Society 131
- Leopard in the Afternoon 137
- The Semliki Leopard 143
- The Riddle of Lewa Downs 149
- Kilimanjaro: Hemingway in Africa 163
- Bewitched by the Syrian Desert 181
- Blood Libel: Richard Burton and Human Sacrifice 187
- The Rise and Fall of Nathaniel Naismith 195
- The Killing of Sir Harry Oakes 203
- Sargent's Ashes 213
- Flying with Superman 221
- Grand Slam 227
- The Blue Nude 233
- Meisner's Island 239
- The Glenthorne Cat 247.
- ISBN:
- 9780500251867
- 050025186X
- OCLC:
- 761052947
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