Making Canada while Narrating It: Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion

This article addresses the themes which, unquestionably, Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion deals with, starting from an exploration of the formal choices structuring the book. Specifically, it argues that positing Patrick Lewis as (an impossible) narrator goes a long way in reinforcing formally Ondaatje’s thematic concerns, namely, the problematic relationship between center and periphery, between Toronto documented official history and undocumented and unofficial stories of its protagonists.