First published 1993
The English patient cannot remember his name. His body bears the scars of a plane crash in the North African desert. He lies in a bombed Italian villa, tended by Hana, a young Canadian nurse who has lost too many patients to war. Kip, a Sikh sapper, defuses unexploded bombs in the surrounding countryside while falling in love with Hana. Caravaggio, a thief turned spy, arrives with his own wartime wounds and suspicions about the patient's true identity. As the patient's memories surface in fragments, a story emerges of desert expeditions, mapmaking, and a doomed affair with a married woman named Katharine Clifton. The desert both created and destroyed him. Now these four damaged souls find themselves together in the war's aftermath, each carrying secrets and searching for ways to heal. Their conversations weave between past and present, revealing how love and betrayal shaped their fates across the vast landscapes of war.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, adult-fiction
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Africa, Italy, North African Desert
Period: World War II
307 pages · Paperback · Picador
Content warnings: death, war