The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje's stunning novel takes place during the final moments of the Second World War. It explores the lives of four people who come together in a damaged villa in Tuscany as the war retreats around a young Canadian nurse; an enigmatic thief whose skills have made him one of the war's heroes as well as one of its casualties; a Sikh soldier in the British army; and the English patient, who lies badly burned in an upstairs room. It is his adventures and turbulent love affair in the North African desert before the war, gradually uncovered, that become the centre around which these people's past and present lives unfold. Set mainly in Italy, this is a breathtaking story of love and passion that arcs back in time to Canada, to London during the Blitz and the intricacies of bomb disposal, and to the mysterious, often dangerous world of desert exploration. Michael Ondaatje brings his formidable poetic and narrative powers to bear on the destiny of his characters. In luminous prose, he reveals the complex impact of public conflict on private lives.