Michael Ondaatje&rsquo;s Booker Prize&ndash;winning best seller lyrically portrays the convergence of four damaged lives in a bomb-riddled Italian villa in the last days of the war. Hana, the grieving nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the emotionally detached Indian sapper, Kip&mdash;each is haunted in different ways by the riddle of the man they know only as the English patient, a nameless burn victim who lies swathed in bandages in an upstairs room. It is this man&rsquo;s incandescent memories&mdash;of the bleak North African desert, of explorers&rsquo; caves and Bedouin tribesmen,<br>of forbidden love, and of annihilating anger&mdash;that illuminate the story, and the consequences of the mysteries they reveal radiate outward in shock waves that leave all the characters forever changed.