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The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

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The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
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THE ENGLISH PATIENT

a novel by MICHAEL ONDAATJE

Michael Ondaatje is a novelist and poet who lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author ofIn the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, andThe Collected Works of Billy the Kid; three collections of poems,The Cinnamon Peeler, Secular Love, andThere’s a Trick, with a Knife I’m Learning to Do; and a memoir,Running in the Family. He received the Booker Prize forThe English Patient.

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In memory of Skip and Mary Dickinson

For Quintin and Griffin

And for Louise Dennys, with thanks

‘Most of you, I am sure, remember the tragic cir-cumstances of the death of Geoffrey Clifton at Gilf Kebir, followed later by the disappearance of his wife, Katharine Clifton, which took place during the 1939 desert expedition in search of Zerzura. “I cannot begin this meeting tonight without referring very sympathetically to those tragic oc-currences. “The lecture this evening ...”

From the minutes of the Geographical Society meeting of November 194-, London

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Contents

I - The Villa II - In Near Ruins III - Sometime a Fire IV - South Cairo 1930-1938 V - Katharine VI - A Buried Plane VII - In Situ VIII - The Holy Forest IX - The Cave of Swimmers X - August

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I

The Villa

She stands upin the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance. She has sensed a shift in the weather. There is another gust of wind, a buckle of noise in the air, and the tall cypresses sway. She turns and moves uphill towards the house, climbing over a low wall, feeling the first drops of rain on her bare arms. She crosses the loggia and quickly enters the house. In the kitchen she doesn’t pause but goes through

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