Warlight

A mesmerising new novel from the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of The English Patient.LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018An elegiac novel set in post-WW2 London about memory, family secrets and lies, from the internationally acclaimed author of The English PatientIt 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

Short-listed for Walter Scott Prize 2019 (UK) Long-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2018 (UK)

“Our book of the year - and maybe of Ondaatje's career.”

Our book of the year – and maybe of Ondaatje's career. Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight is a rare and beautiful thing – a deeply retrospective novel about war secrets that feels neither overstated nor overly ethereal. In sumptuous prose, Ondaatje limns the psyche of a man still trying to make sense of his complicated relationships and the mysteries surrounding his absent parents. One of the most absorbing books I’ve read all year. -- Esi Edugyan Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year 2018
Warlight sucked me in deeper than any novel I can remember… fiction as rich, as beautiful, as melancholy as life itself. -- Alex Preston Observer
From the very first sentence you’re desperate to find out what happens next… All is slowly, tantalisingly revealed, in flashbacks, fragments, digressions and stories within stories, narrated in majestic Ondaatjean style. -- Ian Sansom New Statesman
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
The latest novel from the author of The English Patient is just glorious... rendered with Dickensian verve. My hot tip for the Booker Prize. -- Allison Pearson Harpers Bazaar
Ondaatje’s first novel in seven years mesmerizes from start to finish. -- Hephzibah Anderson Mail on Sunday
I spend the months before the publication of a new Michael Ondaatje novel trying to keep my expectations in check, telling myself it's simply unfair to expect as much of any writer as I expect from Ondaatje. Then he pulls off a Warlight, and I'm embarrassed by my own lack of faith... [Warlight] is surprising, delightful, heartbreaking and written as only Ondaatje could write it. -- Kamila Shamsie Observer
Compulsively and grippingly readable. In fact I read it first at a gallop, enthralled by the image of a city and a world distorted and all but destroyed by war, and then again slowly, determined to savour the details and extract as much as I could from it. Much remained puzzling on this second reading, but two things are clear: Michael Ondaatje is a marvellous writer, and Warlight is a novel which will continue to play in the reader’s imagination. -- Allan Massie Scotsman
Ondaatje [is] such a thrilling writer… I loved [Warlight]. -- Johanna Thomas-Corr Evening Standard

Michael Ondaatje is the author of seven novels; a memoir, Running in the Family; a non-fiction book on film, The Conversations- Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film; and several books of poetry, including The Cinnamon Peeler and Handwriting. The English Patient received the Booker Prize in 1992 and the Golden Man Booker in 2018, and was made into a film directed by Anthony Minghella. Anil's Ghost was awarded the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, the Giller Prize and the Prix Medicis. Born in Sri Lanka, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto.

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