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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 companionsâ€"and whose memories of suffering, rescue, and betrayal illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in a! n Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient garnered the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family.Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prizeâ€"! winning best seller lyrically portrays the convergence of four! damaged lives in a bomb-riddled Italian villa in the last days of the war. Hana, the grieving nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the emotionally detached Indian sapper, Kipâ€"each is haunted in different ways by the riddle of the man they know only as the English patient, a nameless burn victim who lies swathed in bandages in an upstairs room. It is this man’s incandescent memoriesâ€"of the bleak North African desert, of explorers’ caves and Bedouin tribesmen,
of forbidden love, and of annihilating angerâ€"that illuminate the story, and the consequences of the mysteries they reveal radiate outward in shock waves that leave all the characters forever changed.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 patien! t, 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.


From the Hardcover edition.Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient garnered the Booker Prize for a! uthor Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In ! the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family.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.


From the Hardcover edition.A collection of amusing minutiae revealing the absurdity of our existence.A collection of amusing minutiae revealing the absurdity of our existence.This is an excellent guide to Michael Ondaatje’s best! -loved novel. It features a biography of the author, a full-length analysis of the novel, a comparison of the novel to the film, and a great deal more. If you’re studying this novel, reading it for your book club, or if you simply want to know more about it, you’ll find this guide informative and helpful. This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years â€" from ‘The Remains of the Day’ to ‘White Teeth’. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.Movie Sound Track Audio CDAnthony Minghella's Oscar-winning realization of Michael Ondaatje's intricate romance deservedly earned comparisons to David Lean's sweeping screen epics derived from strong literary s! ources. Like Lean, Minghella sought an equally thoughtful, yet! ravishi ng musical counterpart that fleshes out a sympathetic orchestral score with allusions to the story's cultural milieu. The equation begins with Gabriel Yared's tender, brooding symphonic score, which mingles the film's poles of fate and passion with subtlety and restraint, then adds the exotic, mesmerizing voice of Marta Sebestyen (best known for her work with Muzsikas, the brilliant Hungarian folk revivalists, who also appear here), whose presence provides a literate clue to the title character's true identity. The film's '40s time-frame gains resonance and dramatic irony by pop songs from that era, including Benny Goodman swing classics and two versions of Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek" (by Fred Astaire and Ella Fitzgerald, respectively). Add a pivotal Bach cue and this is a film package that works even if you don't know the film--and that much more powerfully if you do. --Sam Sutherland