Michael Ondaatje named Reader's Digest's Sexiest Man Alive
KINGSTON, ON—Well, that makes it a baker's dozen.
Lit-heads around the country waited with bated breath last night as Reader's Digest, North America's most widely read general interest periodical, prepared to announce its annual Sexiest Man Alive.
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To the surprise of absolutely no one, Michael Ondaatje, author of such classic novels as In The Skin of a Lion, and The English Patient, took home the title for a record 13th time.
Reached by phone from his Toronto home, Ondaatje was excited yet humble.
"One never grows tired, it seems, of being rewarded for one's own personal attractiveness — whether for physical or intellectual reasons. I suppose that is because in the end, it's a reaffirmation of the self, of the ability for one individual to connect with another individual — for two beings, across space, or time, or knowledge, or indeed of being itself — to see each other, to acknowledge each other as having value; as having innate, historical, value."
"Basically, it's nice to be hot," Ondaatje concluded.
Ondaatje's achievement is all the more astounding when one considers those who have never been awarded the prestigious prize, a group that includes Yann Martel, Rohinton Mistry, and Vincent Lam, while the venerable Robertson Davies had to settle for tying twice with Ondaatje.
Basically, it's nice to be hot.- Michael Ondaatje
Legendary humourist Stephen Leacock never received the award, though it is quite likely that this is because Reader's Digest Canada did not begin publishing until 1947 (three years after Leacock's death), rather than any lack of sex appeal on the part of the author of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich.
Asked what he would do with the $6,000 prize that accompanies the award, Ondaatje said that he will use it to immediately begin work on a new book, and also to renew his GoodLife membership.
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