The English Patient

Summary

In a bombed-out Italian villa at the close of the Second World War, a dying, badly burned man, a Canadian nurse, a thief and a Sikh sapper share an uneasy refuge from the wider conflict. Ondaatje writes in lyrical, fragmentary scenes that move between desert exploration, espionage and the slow defusing of mines, treating prose almost as poetry. The novel is a layered meditation on identity, nationhood and the way love and history mark the body.