Michael Ondaatje in Conversation with David Thomson at Book Passage

Michael Ondaatje discusses his novel The Cat’s Table . In the early 1950s, an 11 year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the “cat’s table”—as far from the Captain’s Table as can be—with two other boys. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another.