The English Patient is the story of four characters living in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II: a badly burned patient (who is not English but Hungarian), the young Canadian nurse who tends to him, an Italian-Canadian thief-turned-intelligence officer, and an Indian bomb defuser. The story explores the impact of the war through its effect on these four characters and their relationships to each other and to those in their personal histories. The narrative spools out over time and space through the memories of the characters -- relating experiences mundane and fantastic across Italy, Canada, India, Cairo, and the Libyan desert.
Through the novel's non-linear...
