ABSTRACT
Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning The English Patient occupies a special position in relation to Aslam’s, de Kretser’s and Law-Yone’s respective texts. For one thing, it is the oldest novel of the four and, undoubtedly, the one that has engendered the largest amount of previous critical research. The English Patient opens at the end of the Second World War, in the dilapidated and dangerous Villa San Girolamo, located in the hills north of Florence. Burnt beyond recognition, the patient’s body has been branded by his involvement in the war. At the same time, the narrative he shares with his nurse speaks of continuous efforts to be rid of any kind of responsibility towards others. Literally, Laszlo Ede Almasy has assigned his life to the margins of Herodotus’ book, turning his personal history into a sub-plot of what is considered one of the founding works of history in Western literature.
