McClelland & Stewart has announced that the sixth novel by Michael Ondaatje will be published in Canada on Aug. 30, 2011. Plot details for the novel, titled The Cat’s Table, are still pretty scarce, but the book’s early readers (as well as its various editors) are raving about it.

In a press release, M&S executive vice-president Ellen Seligman calls The Cat’s Table “a surprise and a sheer delight “ a brilliantly told story, with unforgettable moments and characters,” adding that it is “perhaps Ondaatje’s most thrilling and moving novel to date.” Anna Leube of Germany’s Hanser Publishers says the book is an “adventure novel” recalling 1,001 Nights. And Knopf U.S. chairman and editor-in-chief Sonny Mehta says the novel “resonates on many levels,” conjuring “the innocence of childhood and the challenges of making one’s home in a strange land.”