The English Patient - Hardcover

Ondaatje, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679416781 ISBN 13: 9780679416784

Publisher: Random House USA Inc, 1992

Synopsis

At the end of World War II, the lives of four people--a young American nurse; her dying English patient; a handless American thief; and an Indian soldier in the British army--intertwine in a deserted Italian villa. 20,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo.

About this title

Review:

Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as the second world war ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of sheet lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient secured the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family.

Review:

"A rare and spellbinding web of dreams." --"Time"
"Sensuous, mysterious, rhapsodic, it transports the reader to another world . . . . Ondaatje's most probing examination yet of the nature of identity." --"San Francisco Chronicle"
"Mr. Ondaatje [is] one of North America's finest novelists . . . . The spell of his haunted villa remains with us, inviting us to reread passages for the pure pleasure of being there." --"Wall Street Journal"

"A rare and spellbinding web of dreams." --"Time"

"Sensuous, mysterious, rhapsodic, it transports the reader to another world . . . . Ondaatje's most probing examination yet of the nature of identity." --"San Francisco Chronicle"

"Mr. Ondaatje [is] one of North America's finest novelists . . . . The spell of his haunted villa remains with us, inviting us to reread passages for the pure pleasure of being there." --"Wall Street Journal"

"A rare and spellbinding web of dreams." "Time"

"Sensuous, mysterious, rhapsodic, it transports the reader to another world . . . . Ondaatje's most probing examination yet of the nature of identity." "San Francisco Chronicle"

"Mr. Ondaatje [is] one of North America's finest novelists . . . . The spell of his haunted villa remains with us, inviting us to reread passages for the pure pleasure of being there." "Wall Street Journal""

"A rare and spellbinding web of dreams." Time

"Sensuous, mysterious, rhapsodic, it transports the reader to another world . . . . Ondaatje's most probing examination yet of the nature of identity." San Francisco Chronicle

"Mr. Ondaatje [is] one of North America's finest novelists . . . . The spell of his haunted villa remains with us, inviting us to reread passages for the pure pleasure of being there." Wall Street Journal

"

"A rare and spellbinding web of dreams." --Time

"Sensuous, mysterious, rhapsodic, it transports the reader to another world . . . . Ondaatje's most probing examination yet of the nature of identity." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Mr. Ondaatje [is] one of North America's finest novelists . . . . The spell of his haunted villa remains with us, inviting us to reread passages for the pure pleasure of being there." --Wall Street Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0679416781
• ISBN 13: 9780679416784
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 307