The English Patient

In the final days of the Second World War, an Italian villa-turned-hospital houses four unlikely companions, each scarred—physically or emotionally—by the trauma of conflict. At the heart of The English Patient lies a mystery: the identity and past of a man lying in an upstairs room, severely burned and unable to remember his name. Known only as “the English patient,” he is cared for by Hana, a young Canadian nurse devastated by personal tragedy.

Their solitude is broken by the arrival of two more strangers: Caravaggio, a former thief-turned-spy with shattered hands and lingering bitterness, and Kip, a sensitive and meticulous Sikh sapper in the British Indian Army, whose job is to defuse the unexploded bombs left behind by war. As their lives intertwine, the villa becomes a space of reflection, healing, and revelation.

Through lyrical, nonlinear storytelling and vivid imagery, Michael Ondaatje moves between present and past—from the vast deserts of North Africa to the bombed streets of wartime Europe—unfolding a sweeping story of forbidden love, espionage, colonialism, and the fragmented identities left in war’s wake.

A National Bestseller. Winner of Booker Prize.