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  • Published: 16 April 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784708344
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $22.99

Warlight





A mesmerising new novel from the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of The English Patient.

**LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018**

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

It is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women all who seem determined to protect Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? A dozen years later, Nathaniel journeys through recollection, reality and imagination to uncover all he didn’t know or understand in that time, to piece together a story that feels something like the truth.

‘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... I haven’t read a better novel this year’ Telegraph

  • Published: 16 April 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784708344
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $22.99

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.

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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

- So finely are his sentences constructed that you find yourself holding your breath lest you inadvertently disturb their symmetry

Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph

[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
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