A masterpiece (Financial Times)Magnificent (Sunday Times)Extraordinary (Daily Telegraph)The English Patient wears the triple crown: it is profound, beautiful and heart-quickening (Toni Morrison)Language of such riveting beauty that one is made to stop and stare (Observer)One of the most innovative and liberating writers of our time (Guardian)The best piece of fiction in English I've read in years (Independent on Sunday)An exotic, consuming and richly inspired novel of passion. In its elegance and its satisfactions it resembles no book I know (Richard Ford)Feats of daring espionage, aeroplanes mysteriously buried beneath desert sand, archaeological exploration in the Sahara and nail-biting accounts of bomb-disposal against a nervous clock . this is the real thing: muscular, resonant, alive (Spectator)In descriptive prose of spectacular beauty, he invents a desert world which is both physical and imaginative. This is one of the few truly great post-war novels (Irish Times)

WINNER OF THE GOLDEN MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018

'Magnificent' Sunday Times

'The best piece of fiction I've read in years' Independent on Sunday

The final curtain is closing on the Second World War and in an abandoned Italian village. Hana, a nurse, tends to her sole remaining patient. Rescued from a burning plane, the anonymous Englishman is damaged beyond recognition and haunted by painful memories.

The only clue Hana has to unlocking his past is the one thing he clung on to through the fire - a copy of The Histories by Herodotus, covered with hand-written notes detailing a tragic love affair.