Warlight: A novel

Michael Ondaatje

May 2018 · Sold by Vintage

About this eBook

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the internationally acclaimed, Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient: “an elegiac thriller [with] the immediate allure of a dark fairy tale” (The Washington Post) set in the decade after World War II that tells the dramatic story of two teenagers and an eccentric group of characters.

In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself—shadowed and luminous at once—we read the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey—through facts, recollection, and imagination—that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.

Ratings and reviews

Im so sad because I couldn't wait to read this book. But boy I didnt expect this at all. I love to read and it takes a lot for me to dislike a book. I'm sorry but this book was very bland, and uneventful. I felt that the author was all over the place, and would drift off into a part of the story that I didn't care about or feel was necessary to talk about to where it wad almost irrelevant. And it happened a lot in the book. I also couldn't get attached to the the characters so all in all I was very disappointed.Such a bummer 😕

There is nothing more pretentious than an online customer review of a book. Every one of them so desperate to sound educated and well-read. I'll leave it to the professionals. Read the book for yourself. I don't know your taste in books.

Here's a master writer with his own distinct voice. His voice is powerful yet quiet at the same time. Good character development. Enjoyable read

About the author

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 in 1992 and the Golden Man Booker in 2018; 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.