The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje. The book follows four dissimilar people brought together at an Italian villa during the Italian Campaign of the Second World War. The four main characters consist of: an unrecognizably burned man — the eponymous patient who is presumed to be English; his Canadian Army nurse; a Sikh British Army sapper; and a Canadian self described as a thief. The story is set during the North African Campaign and centers on the incremental revelations of the patient's actions prior to his injuries, and the emotional effects of these revelations on the other characters. The story is told through the characters' perspectives and "authors" of books the characters are reading.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2003.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2000.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1999.
The Mauritius Command is the fourth naval historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1977.
Jean Raspail was a French explorer, novelist, and travel writer. Many of his books are about historical figures, exploration and indigenous peoples. He was a recipient of the prestigious French literary awards Grand Prix du Roman and Grand Prix de littérature by the Académie française. The French government honoured him in 2003 by appointing him to the Legion of Honor, with the grade of Officer. Internationally, he is best known for his controversial 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints, which is about mass third-world immigration to Europe.
William John Banville is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry James are the two real influences on his work.
Jame Gumb is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Thomas Harris's 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs and its 1991 film adaptation, in which he is played by Ted Levine. In the film and the novel, he is a serial killer who murders overweight women and skins them so he can make a "woman suit" for himself. In the television series Clarice, he is portrayed by Simon Northwood.
James Dover Grant, primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels, and is best known for his Jack Reacher novel series. The books follow the adventures of a former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States. His first novel, Killing Floor (1997), won both the Anthony Award and the 1998 Barry Award for Best First Novel.
The Camp of the Saints is a 1973 French dystopian fiction novel by author and explorer Jean Raspail. A speculative fictional account, it depicts the destruction of Western civilization through Third World mass immigration to France and the Western world. Almost forty years after its initial publication, the novel returned to the bestseller list in 2011.
Atonement is a 2001 British metafictional novel written by Ian McEwan. Set in three time periods, 1935 England, Second World War England and France, and present-day England, it covers an upper-class girl's half-innocent mistake that ruins lives, her adulthood in the shadow of that mistake, and a reflection on the nature of writing.
The Kawésqar, also known as the Kaweskar, Alacaluf, Alacalufe or Halakwulup, are an indigenous people who live in Chilean Patagonia, specifically in the Brunswick Peninsula, and Wellington, Santa Inés, and Desolación islands northwest of the Strait of Magellan and south of the Gulf of Penas. Their traditional language is known as Kawésqar; it is endangered as few native speakers survive.
The Silence of the Lambs is a 1988 psychological horror crime thriller novel by Thomas Harris. Published August 29, it is the sequel to Harris's 1981 novel Red Dragon and both novels feature the cannibalistic serial killer and brilliant psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter. This time, however, he is pitted against FBI trainee Clarice Starling as she works to solve the case of the "Buffalo Bill" serial killer. It is the most well-known installment of Harris' Hannibal Lecter series, selling over 10 million copies.
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is a Franco-Belgian playwright, short story writer and novelist, as well as a film director. His plays have been staged in over fifty countries all over the world.
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a personal memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is an American author. She has published fiction and non-fiction books and articles on animal behavior, Paleolithic life, and the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.
Poor Fellow My Country is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author Xavier Herbert. At 1,463 pages, it is the longest Australian work of fiction ever written, and the longest single-volume novel to have been written in the English language. Poor Fellow My Country won the 1976 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's most prestigious such award. It was Herbert's final novel.
Creation is a 2009 British biographical drama film about Charles Darwin's relationship with his wife Emma and his memory of their eldest daughter Annie, as he struggles to write On the Origin of Species. The film, directed by Jon Amiel and starring real life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as Charles and Emma Darwin, is a somewhat fictionalised account based on Randal Keynes's Darwin biography Annie's Box.
Sept cavaliers is a 1993 novel by the French writer Jean Raspail. It tells the story of seven horsemen who are sent to find why their country, a place with traits of both medieval and modern Europe, is becoming devoid of human life. The characters in the novel have names from all parts of Europe. Throughout the narrative are references to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire under his real name Wilhelm Kostrowitsky.
Blue Island is a 1988 novel by the French writer Jean Raspail. The narrative is set in Touraine during World War II, where a charismatic boy gathers his friends on an island, where they play war games which become increasingly more interlinked with reality. The book was published in English in 1991, translated by Jeremy Leggatt.
