The English Patient (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Michael Ondaatje
- First Published: 1992
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, War fiction
- Subjects: Europe or Europeans, World War II, Violence, Nationalism, Identity
- Locales: Florence, Italy
Revisiting characters from In the Skin of a Lion, The English Patient opens with Hana, a Canadian nurse, newly arrived with her English patient at the ruined Villa San Girolamo. The patient, Almasy, once a desert explorer, has been burned over his entire body. Soon the two are joined by Caravaggio, a Canadian thief conscripted as a spy, and Kirpal “Kip” Singh, an Indian bomb-detonator.
Ondaatje immediately reveals the intensity of recent suffering in the group's sharpened perceptions. Indeed, the entire book is expressed in the striking imagery characteristic...
[The entire page is 1069 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
