3.5
The English Patient
ByPublisher Description
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Warlight traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II. “A rare spellbinding web of dreams.” —Time
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.
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.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe English Patient Reviews
3.5
Caleb
Created 13 days agoShare
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Amanda Krieger
Created 14 days agoShare
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Gabriella
Created 15 days agoShare
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Mae
Created 16 days agoShare
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“The writing was beautiful and the way Ondaatje sets a scene and immerses you in the moment is amazing, but at times it felt a bit too much for me. I personally don’t think every sentence should drip with poetic significance, I think it becomes tiring to read.”
beandon
Created 20 days agoShare
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“who is he speaking as now? caravaggio thinks
love is a tapestry of stories”
About Michael Ondaatje
MICHAEL ONDAATJE is the author of six previous novels, a memoir, a nonfiction book on film, and several books of poetry. The English Patient won the Booker Prize and subsequently the Golden Man Booker Prize, given in honor of the Prize's 50th anniversary; Anil's Ghost won the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, the Giller Prize, and the Prix Médicis. Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje now lives in Toronto.
Other books by Michael Ondaatje
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