After the affair ended, he was especially rude to her in public. Almasy fell in love with Katherine, and they began an affair, which Katherine finally broke off. In 1936, an Oxford man who owned a plane, Geoffrey Clifton, and his wife, Katherine, joined him, and they got on well. He spent years exploring the North African desert, observing and making maps. The English patient reveals his name is Almasy. He and the English patient get along well, and Kip becomes part of the family, though his job is dangerous. He wants to check the piano for booby-traps. Kip is an Indian Sikh in the British army, and has come to clear the area of bombs. Hana plays the piano, and two soldiers arrive. He often mourns the death of Hana’s father in the war. He is now addicted to morphine, although somewhat recovered from the torture he suffered. The Germans caught him, tortured him, and cut off his thumbs, making his hands nearly useless. He put those skills to use in the war and worked for the British Intelligence in North Africa. Caravaggio used to be a thief, years ago, in Canada. He has bandaged hands, and is an old friend of Hana’s father, Patrick. One day, another man, Caravaggio, arrives at the villa. Sometimes she reads the book he carried with him, a copy of Herodotus’ The Histories. Hana assumes he is English and often reads to him. A Bedouin tribe found and cared for him, returning him to a British camp in 1944 he is very grateful. Her patient was found in the wreckage of a plane crash, and his whole body is burned beyond recognition. The Germans left bombs and mines buried everywhere, and many nurses and patients have fled to safer places, but Hana stays. Hana is a young nurse, gardening in an Italian villa in 1945. It also moves between each of the main characters’ points of view.

The narrative structure of The English Patient moves continually between past and present, between the burned English patient’s memories from before his accident and current events. It was adapted into a 1996 film, which received nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director at the 69 th Academy Awards. The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Michael Ontaatje which won both the Booker Prize and the Governor General’s Award.

The english patient novel