Author(s): Michael Ondaatje

Classics

"Hana, the Canadian nurse exhausted by death and grieving for her own dead father; Caravaggio, the maimed thief-turned-Allied-agent; Kip, the emotionally detached Indian sapper each is haunted in different ways by the man they know only as the English patient, a nameless burn victim who lies in an upstairs room. His extraordinary knowledge and morphine-induced memories of the North African desert, of explorers and tribes, of history and cartography; and also of forbidden love, suffering and betrayal illuminate the story, and leave all the characters for ever changed."