In ‘Running in the Family’ Michael Ondaatje returns to Sri Lanka, the home he left for Canada twenty five years earlier. A dream lures Ondaatje to revisit his childhood and the exotic family he never really understood. Born in Ceylon, into a privileged group of Sinhalese, Tamil and Dutch origins, Ondaatje has created a book seamlessly fused by anecdotes, poems and memories are as he tries to piece together the portrait of his Sri Lankan heritage and the stories and secrets of his ancestors.