The English Patient: Winner of the Golden Man Booker Prize

Michael Ondaatje

Jan 2011 · A&C Black

About this ebook

WINNER OF THE GOLDEN MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018

'Magnificent' Sunday Times

'The best piece of fiction I've read in years' Independent on Sunday

The final curtain is closing on the Second World War and in an abandoned Italian village. Hana, a nurse, tends to her sole remaining patient. Rescued from a burning plane, an anonymous Englishman is damaged beyond recognition and haunted by painful memories.

The only clue Hana has to unlocking his past is the one thing he clung on to through the fire – a copy of The Histories by Herodotus, covered with hand-written notes detailing a tragic love affair.

Ratings and reviews

Vivid prose, romantic, sweeping and epic in scope. Not an easy read and it does drag at times, but overall a very powerful work by a gifted writer.

Beautiful and haunting, I enjoyed The English Patient even more the second time of reading. A great book to read on my phone, too!

All the characters are unusual and all have fascinating stories to unfold in the settings of a ruined grand house near Florence post WW2 and the desert of Egypt just before the war.

About the author

Michael Ondaatje is the author of several novels, as well as a memoir, a non-fiction book on film, and several books of poetry. Among his many Canadian and international recognitions, his novel The English Patient won the Booker Prize and the 2018 Golden Man Booker Prize, and was adapted into a multi-award-winning Oscar movie; and Anil's Ghost won the Giller Prize, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the Prix Médicis. Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto.