In the Skin of a Lion

In the Skin of a Lion is the sprawling, often dreamlike story of Patrick Lewis, a Canadian man who moves from his rural hometown to Toronto in the 1920s. The novel was written by Canadian-Sri Lankan author Michael Ondaatje and published in 1987. Its loosely chronological narrative offers a patchwork of vivid, mysterious, tenuously connected stories that piece together Patrick’s journey over two decades, from the late 1910s to the late 1930s.

The story and its characters are firmly rooted in this tumultuous period of Canadian industrial history, as Patrick assumes various industrial jobs and crosses paths with immigrant workers, socialist activists, capitalist tycoons, and thieves. Looming in this historical landscape are the violence and dehumanization wrought by industrial advancement, the injustice of economic inequality, the trials of immigration, and the discomforts of forging an identity out of the complex factors of ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, and language.

The novel begins with a half-page prologue setting the scene: A man relates these stories to a girl (Patrick and Hana, respectively, as will become apparent late in the novel) as they drive through the early morning darkness toward Marmora, Ontario.