The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje

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The English Patient flows like Almasy’s unchartered deserts, with bumps and beauty and mystery. It centres around a collection of nations, a small group of survivors, shell-shocked and living in an Italian villa.

Ever strong is the presence of nature – as if no human can escape it. Even the winds have names.

Marvellously structured, The English Patient delves through history and stories are strong. Beautiful and lyrical. A blend of love and memory. The flawless deliverance of the story make it vivid, sacred.

I like it especially because it talks about writing and books and Django Deinhardt.

‘She had come to love these books dressed in their Italian spines, the frontispieces, the tipped-in colour illustrations with a covering of tissue, the smell of them, even the sound of the crack if you opened them too fast, as if breaking some minute unseen series of bones.’