Warlight
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  • Published: 7 June 2018
  • ISBN: 9781473562042
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 7 hr 33 min
  • Narrator: George Blagden
  • RRP: $19.99

Warlight

Formats & editions
Paperback
16 Apr 2019
EBook
10 May 2018
Audiobook
7 Jun 2018
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A mesmerising new novel from the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of The English Patient.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Warlight by Michael Ondaatje, read by George Blagden.
'Our book of the year – and maybe of Ondaatje's career' Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018

An elegiac, dreamlike novel set in post-WW2 London about memory, family secrets and lies, from the internationally acclaimed author of The English Patient

‘The past never remains in the past…’
London, 1945. The capital is still reeling from the war. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel are abandoned by their parents who leave the country on business, and are left in the dubious care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. Nathaniel is introduced to The Moth’s band of criminal misfits and is caught up in a series of teenage misadventures, from smuggling greyhounds for illegal dog racing to lovers’ trysts in abandoned buildings at night.

But is this eccentric crew really what and who they claim to be? And most importantly, what happened to Nathaniel’s mother? Was her purported reason for leaving true? What secrets did she hide in her past? Years later Nathaniel, now an adult, begins to slowly piece together using the files of intelligence agencies – and through reality, recollection and imagination – the startling truths of puzzles formed decades earlier.

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‘A novel of shadowy brilliance’ The Times
‘Fiction as rich, as beautiful, as melancholy as life itself, written in the visionary language of memory’ Observer
‘Ondaatje brilliantly threads the mysteries and disguises and tangled loyalties and personal yearnings of the secret world...and has constructed something of real emotional and psychological heft, delicate melancholy and yet, frequently, page-turning plottiness. I haven’t read a better novel this year.’ Telegraph
  • Published: 7 June 2018
  • ISBN: 9781473562042
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 7 hr 33 min
  • Narrator: George Blagden
  • RRP: $19.99
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About the author

Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje is the author of several novels, as well as a memoir, a nonfiction book on film, and several books of poetry. Among his many Canadian and international recognitions, his novel The English Patient won the 1992 Man Booker Prize, was adapted into a multi-award winning Oscar movie, and was awarded the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018; Anil’s Ghost won the Giller Prize, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the Prix Médicis; and Warlight was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto.

portrait photo of Michael Ondaatje

Also by Michael Ondaatje

A Year of Last Things
Coming Through Slaughter
Running in the Family
The English Patient
Handwriting
Anil's Ghost
The Cat's Table
See all

Praise for Warlight

Ondaatje’s prose is beautiful, and he successfully builds suspense and tension without seeming too heavy-handed

Ella Walker, Herald Scotland

Michael Ondaatje is at his best when writing about awkward, quiet types

A. S. H. Smyth, Spectator

Brilliant dramatic tale

Love it!

Ondaatje’s prose is consistently illuminating. Warlight is a meditation on the purpose and possibilities of storytelling

Ben Masters, Literary Review

[T]his elegiac novel combines the stealth of an espionage thriller with the irresolute shift of a memory play, purposefully full of fragments, loss and unfinished stories. Wonderful

Claire Allfree, Daily Mail

Warlight is a subtly thrilling story… It's a masterful book

Rachel Fellows, Esquire UK

For the lyrical strength of the prose alone, a new Michael Ondaatje novel is always a treat

Irish Independent

[C]ompulsively and grippingly readable… Ondaatje is a marvelous writer, and Warlight is a novel which will continue to play in the reader’s imagination

Allan Massie, The Scotsman

Warlight is a layered, precisely written, erudite meditation on the damage we do when we make war

Morag MacInnes, Tablet

In Warlight we have a writer who knows exactly what he’s doing – and has constructed something of real emotional and psychological heft, delicate melancholy and yet, frequently, page-turning plottiness. I haven’t read a better novel this year

Sam Leith, Daily Telegraph

[Ondaatje’s] prose has a haunting musicality, which George Blagden brings out to the full.

Christina Hardyment, The Times