The English Patient

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-10

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Background

Authorial Context: Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje was born in 1943 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His parents were of Tamil and Dutch Burgher descent, and in 1954, he and his mother emigrated to England. Ondaatje attended Dulwich College, a private school in London, before moving to Montreal, Quebec, in 1962. In Montreal, he studied at Bishops’ College School and Bishops’ University. He received his bachelor of arts from the University of Toronto in 1965 and his master of arts from Queen’s University at Kingston in 1967. He later taught English at both the University of Western Ontario and York University. Ondaatje lives in Toronto with his second wife, Linda Spalding, an academic and novelist. Since 1985, he and Spalding have run Brick, A Literary Journal, and Ondaatje also works as a poetry editor for Coach House Books.

Ondaatje’s first collection of poetry, The Dainty Monsters (1967), is a series of lyric poems that juxtapose everyday domestic life with grand mythic images. His second poetry collection, The Collected Works of Billy the Kidd (1970), was inspired by Ondaatje’s fascination with stories of the American West. A pastiche, it contains not only poems, but prose writing, photographs, and interviews, all of which reflect on themes like violence and heroism. In 1984, he published Secular Love, which includes poems about the breakup of his first marriage to photographer Kim Ondaatje, and he continued publishing poetry for the next 20 years.

Ondaatje’s first novel, Coming Through Slaughter (1976), fictionalizes the descent into schizophrenia of Buddy Bolden, a real-life New Orleans jazz musician. In 1987, he published In the Skin of a Lion, which documents a clash between rich and poor in early 20th-century Toronto and which includes Hana and Caravaggio, two characters who would later appear in The English Patient. Ondaatje has also written multiple novels set in or featuring Sri Lanka or England. His prose work is known for its poetic elements, and he often meditates on themes like memory, history, grief, and the impact of global politics on the lives of individuals.

Historical Context: The North African Campaign

The North African campaign of World War II took place from June 10, 1940, to May 13, 1943. It stretched across several countries, including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, and was fought between the Allied powers and the Axis powers.

It began when Italy, led by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, declared war on France and Great Britain. In response, British Army forces crossed from Egypt into Libya, where they captured a fort belonging to Italy. The two armies continued launching counteroffensives against one another, with Britain gradually gaining the upper hand. After the Italian Tenth Army was destroyed at the 1941 Battle of Beda Fomm, the German Afrika Korps was sent to North Africa to prevent a complete Axis defeat. Another series of battles culminated in the Second Battle of El Alamein, which took place in Egypt from October 23 to November 11, 1942. This battle eliminated the Axis threat to Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Persian oil fields; it also boosted the Allied troops’ morale and marked a decisive shift in regional conflicts.

After Allied troops won more victories against troops from Germany, Italy, and Vichy France, the Axis powers surrendered in May 1943. This victory led directly to the launching of the Italian Campaign, also known as the Liberation of Italy. After the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Mussolini fell from power and the Fascist government of Italy collapsed. However, in September 1943, German troops invaded Italy, rescued Mussolini, and established a puppet state that collaborated with Nazi Germany until its surrender to Allied forces in May 1945.

The North African campaign is significant not only for its contribution to the Italian campaign, but for the use on both Allied and Axis sides of code-breaking intelligence. Additionally, while it is often considered a non-ideological conflict, removed from acts of racial and ethnic brutality happening throughout Europe, numerous acts of racial violence did take place during the North African campaign. These were mostly committed by German and Italian troops, who targeted local Berber, Arab, and Jewish populations. In The English Patient, the North African campaign forms part of the backdrop of the titular patient’s wartime experiences.