The English Patient
Type
Book
Authors
ISBN 10
0771068751
ISBN 13
9780771068751
Category
813 Fiction
[ Browse Items ]
Publication Year
1997
Publisher
Pages
301
Subject
World War, 1939-1945 -- Social aspects -- Italy -- Florence -- Fiction. Nurses -- Fiction. War victims -- Fiction.
Tags
Abstract
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, the 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.
Description
Publisher Comments
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.
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.
Biblio Notes
Material Type: Fiction
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Michael Ondaatje
ISBN: 0771068751 9780771068751
OCLC Number: 37195274
Description: 301 pages ; 22 cm
Responsibility: Michael Ondaatje.
Number of Copies
1
