Christopher Ondaatje, who has become a generous benefactor to Bermuda, paying for the new National Gallery wing that now bears his name, made a fortune when he founded Canada's first brokerage house.

The man who was born in colonial Ceylon and educated in England before emigrating to Canada to shake up the financial world, was also a member of their 1964 Olympic gold medal-winning bob-sled team. Then, having conquered the world of finance, new interests beckoned and Mr. Ondaatje sold his Canadian companies and embarked on his African travels. The result was his first book, Leopard in the Afternoon.

In his latest, lavishly produced book, The Man-Eater of Punanai, the author returns to his native Sri Lanka to relive the story of a legendary leopard that, seventy years before, terrorised a tiny village, killing more than twenty people. He had remembered the fearful tale since childhood and, forty years later, retraced the events in that far-off village that had both appalled and fascinated him.

But Christopher Ondaatje is an unusual man and the story of his quest has become far more than just another travel book. His search became an allegorical delving into his own past and a confrontation with the forces that had driven his life. For running parallel, and skillfully interwoven in the account of his physical pursuit of the ghostly leopard, is his realisation that he had also to come to terms with the ghost of his father, the man whose own self-destruction had driven his son on to achieve spectacular worldly success. As a member of pre-independent Ceylon's colonial elite, Ondaatje had led what he calls a "pampered life'' and he makes the observation that the news of his tea-planter father's bankruptcy, which resulted in his removal from his expensive English school, was more of a shock than leaving his island home in the first place. With two havens of safety destroyed before he was 17, he was probably less alarmed than most people at the thought of starting a new life in a new country with only 12 in his pocket. Only when his financial success had compensated the memory of his father's disgrace, was he able to confront the conflicting memories that his father had inspired. This book is the story of his journey home, in every sense of the word.

There is another thread running through this very honest book that makes it a fascinating read. For it is also the story of an island nation that is in the throes of self-destruction. His journey through the exotic jungles of Sri Lanka was fraught with danger, not so much from wild animals but from man, as the civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamil rebels raged through villages, tea plantations and the northern jungles of old Ceylon.

Mr. Ondaatje's message, a cautionary and universal one, is that if people do not learn to live harmoniously together, "there will most certainly be tragic consequences.'' Sri Lanka, an island of outstanding beauty, has already destroyed its lucrative tourist industry.

Christopher Ondaatje has also taken the superb photographs that reveal the magnificence of this ancient and picturesque island, its people and rich array of wild life -- including some brilliant shots of Sri Lanka's awesome leopards.

All the Bermuda proceeds from The Man-Eater of Punanai are to be donated to the Masterworks Foundation. The book is on sale at $30 at the Bermuda National Gallery and Masterworks (above the Britannia gift shop) on Front Street.

PATRICIA CALNAN.

SUCCESS STORY -- Mr. Christopher Ondaatje, whose new book was launched at the opening last week of the new National Gallery wing.