The English Patient
Michael Ondaatje
- Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
- Date published: 1993
- Format: Hardcover
- ISBN: 9780679416784
Ninth Printing, February 1993. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread, in Near Fine condition. Erstwhile remainder has red stripe on tail edge spine, slight specks on cloth spine, o/w unmarked. Winner of the 1992 Booker Prize. "During the final moments of World War II, in a deserted Italian villa, four people come together: a young nurse, her will broken, all her energy focussed on her last, dying patient, a man in whom she has seen something 'she wanted to learn, to grow into and hide in' . . . the patient: an unknown Englishman, survivor of a plane crash, his mind awash with a life's worth of secrets and passions . . . a thief whose 'skills' have made him one of the war's heroes, and one of its casualties . . . an Indian soldier in the British army, an expert at bomb disposal whose three years at war have taught him that 'the only thing safe is himself.' [] Slowly, they begin to reveal themselves to each other, the stories of their pasts and of the present unfolding in scene after haunting scene, taking us into the Sahara, the English countryside, down the streets of London during the Blitz, into the makeshift army hospitals of Italy, and through the battered gardens and rooms of the villa. And with these stories, Ondaatje weaves a complex tapestry of image and emotion, recollection and observation: the paths and details of four diverse lives caught and changed and now inextricably connected by the brutal, improbable circumstances of war." [jacket copy] "THE ENGLISH PATIENT by Michael Ondaatje wears the triple crown: it is profound, beautiful and heart-quickening."--Toni Morrison. "In this masterful novel, Michael Ondaatje weaves a beautiful and light-handed prose through the mingled histories of people caught up in love and war. A rich and compelling work of fiction."--Don DeLillo. "THE ENGLISH PATIENT is an exotic, consuming, and richly inspired novel of passion. In its elegance and its satisfactions it resembles no book I know."--Richard Ford. Bright hardcover w/brilliant corners & crisp deckle edges, a square & tight binding, wrapped in an intact NF jacket; a typically Fine Knopf production.
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