English Patient

'Ondaatje's novel about love and confusion set at the end of the Second World War follows a small group of shell-shocked characters. In descriptive prose of spectacular beauty, he invents a desert world which is both physical and imaginative. This is one of the few truly great post-war novels' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times'Magnificent... All the allure of early 20th Century desert exploration is contained in Ondaatje's beautiful, spare narrative... A wise and graceful book about history itself, both the events that are its raw material and the human values that shape it' Sunday Times'Profound, beautiful and heart-quickening' Toni Morrison'Ondaatje has written a popular novel, a war story and spy story, tingling with mystery and sexual tension, which is also a grave and true image of life' Peter Craven, The Age, Melbourne'A magic carpet of a novel that soars across worlds and times... as rare and spellbinding a net of dreams as any that has emerged in recent years' Pico Iyer, Time'The best piece of fiction in English I've read inseveral years'Edmund White, Independent on Sunday