Michael Ondaatje’s ‘The English Patient’ wins ‘best of 50’ Booker Prize

The English Patient published originally in 1992 wins the Golden Man Booker. Michael Ondaatje has covered geographically the most beautiful places in the world giving the reader a sense of the past.

The book contains drama, sorrow, love, war, dedication, loyalty, adultery, etc. The book covers Cairo, Italy, India, England, Canada, deserts, villas and bomb craters. There is absolutely no geographical boundary to Ondaatje’s imagination.

The book was also adapted to a film of the same name that was directed by Anthony Minghella in 1996.

The English Patient won its title over VS Naipaul’s In A Free State and three works. The public chose The Golden Man Booker, the one-off award marking the Man Booker Prize’s 50th anniversary celebrations on Sunday. There was a month-long public vote on the Man Booker website.

The panel of five judges had also considered all of the 51 previous winners each of whom was asked to read the winning novels from one decade of the prize’s history.

Robert McCrum, chose In A Free State by VS Naipaul for the 1970s, Lemn Sissay, chose Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively for the 1980s, Kamila Shamsie, chose The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje for the 1990s, Simon Mayo, chose Wolf Hallby Hilary Mantel for the noughties, and Hollie McNish, chose Lincoln In The
Bardoby George Saunders for the 2010s.

The captivating story of the English Patient just seemed to have gotten to everyone. As Shamsie said, that the book has the capacity to get into your skin and takes you on a voyage through time and again. One second you would be in one era and the other second in another.