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The English Patient

by Michael Ondaatje

The English Patient Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

With unsettling beauty and intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II.

The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a man who is both a riddle and a provocation to his companions—and whose memories of suffering, rescue, and betrayal illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

Review:

"An exotic, consuming, and richly inspired novel of passion. In its elegance and its satisfactions it resembles no book I know." Richard Ford

Review:

"No novel published this year in Britain, or anywhere else, matches The English Patient for either lyricism, narrative impact or quality on any level... This is one of the few truly great post-war novels" Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

Review:

"The best piece of fiction in English I've read in several years." Edmund White

Synopsis:

The Booker Prize-winning novel, now a critically acclaimed major motion picture, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe and Kristin Scott Thomas. With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the  intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.

About the Author

Michael Ondaatje is the author of three previous novels, a memoir and eleven books of poetry. His novel The English Patient won the Booker Prize. Born in Sri Lanka, he moved to Canada in 1962 and now lives in Toronto.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
bookluver, December 29, 2007 (view all comments by bookluver)
Never having lived in a warzone, "The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje gave me a greater understanding of the horrors of war. Three men and one woman remain living in a villa in the Tuscan hills.

The villa has been destroyed by bombs during WWII. The lives of these four people, Hana, Kip, Caravaggio and the English patient are also damaged deeply.

The poetic way in which Michael Ondaatje writes is spectacular. Somehow the poetic prose took me under the skin of the characters. I began to see and feel what the people felt as if I were there walking with Kip to find undiscovered mines, with Caravaggio as he shared conversations and morphine with the English patient, listening to Hana read "Kim" by Kipling to the burnt and unrecognizable English patient and falling down a well of memories with the English patient. Herodotus always in his line of vision.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780679745204
Author:
Ondaatje, Michael
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Location:
New York :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Historical
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Italy
Subject:
World war, 1939-1945
Subject:
War
Subject:
Historical - General
Subject:
Historical fiction
Subject:
War stories
Subject:
Italy Fiction.
Subject:
World War, 19
Copyright:
Edition Description:
Vintage Intl
Series Volume:
. 5252
Publication Date:
January 1992
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
320
Dimensions:
8.02x5.20x.66 in. .52 lbs.

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