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Warlight

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Warlight

By: Michael Ondaatje
Narrated by: George Blagden
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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Warlight by Michael Ondaatje, read by George Blagden.
'Our book of the year and maybe of Ondaatje's career' Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018


An elegiac, dreamlike novel set in post-WW2 London about memory, family secrets and lies, from the internationally acclaimed author of The English Patient


‘The past never remains in the past…’


London, 1945. The capital is still reeling from the war.
14-year-old Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel are abandoned by their parents who leave the country on business, and are left in the dubious care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. Nathaniel is introduced to The Moth’s band of criminal misfits and is caught up in a series of teenage misadventures, from smuggling greyhounds for illegal dog racing to lovers’ trysts in abandoned buildings at night.

But is this eccentric crew really what and who they claim to be? And most importantly, what happened to Nathaniel’s mother? Was her purported reason for leaving true? What secrets did she hide in her past? Years later Nathaniel, now an adult, begins to slowly piece together using the files of intelligence agencies – and through reality, recollection and imagination – the startling truths of puzzles formed decades earlier.

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‘A novel of shadowy brilliance’ The Times

‘Fiction as rich, as beautiful, as melancholy as life itself, written in the visionary language of memory’ Observer


‘Ondaatje brilliantly threads the mysteries and disguises and tangled loyalties and personal yearnings of the secret world...and has constructed something of real emotional and psychological heft, delicate melancholy and yet, frequently, page-turning plottiness. I haven’t read a better novel this year.’ Telegraph

20th Century Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Heartfelt War

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Critic reviews

Our book of the year – and maybe of Ondaatje's career.
Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight is a rare and beautiful thing – a deeply retrospective novel about war secrets that feels neither overstated nor overly ethereal. In sumptuous prose, Ondaatje limns the psyche of a man still trying to make sense of his complicated relationships and the mysteries surrounding his absent parents. One of the most absorbing books I’ve read all year. (Esi Edugyan)
Warlight sucked me in deeper than any novel I can remember… fiction as rich, as beautiful, as melancholy as life itself. (Alex Preston)
From the very first sentence you’re desperate to find out what happens next… All is slowly, tantalisingly revealed, in flashbacks, fragments, digressions and stories within stories, narrated in majestic Ondaatjean style. (Ian Sansom)
In Warlight we have a writer who knows exactly what he’s doing – and has constructed something of real emotional and psychological heft, delicate melancholy and yet, frequently, page-turning plottiness. I haven’t read a better novel this year. (Sam Leith)
The latest novel from the author of The English Patient is just glorious... rendered with Dickensian verve. My hot tip for the Booker Prize. (Allison Pearson)
Ondaatje’s first novel in seven years mesmerizes from start to finish. (Hephzibah Anderson)
I spend the months before the publication of a new Michael Ondaatje novel trying to keep my expectations in check, telling myself it's simply unfair to expect as much of any writer as I expect from Ondaatje. Then he pulls off a Warlight, and I'm embarrassed by my own lack of faith... [Warlight] is surprising, delightful, heartbreaking and written as only Ondaatje could write it. (Kamila Shamsie)
Compulsively and grippingly readable. In fact I read it first at a gallop, enthralled by the image of a city and a world distorted and all but destroyed by war, and then again slowly, determined to savour the details and extract as much as I could from it. Much remained puzzling on this second reading, but two things are clear: Michael Ondaatje is a marvellous writer, and Warlight is a novel which will continue to play in the reader’s imagination. (Allan Massie)
Ondaatje [is] such a thrilling writer… I loved [Warlight]. (Johanna Thomas-Corr)
All stars
Most relevant
An overwhelmingly restrained composition of a book. As close to the manner of creating a painting as I have ever read.
We read not about the exploits of many, many unknowable people in a period of terrible savagery and fear, but instead we feel the disruption in the air or water around us as they pass on by.
Truly. Imagine brush strokes that suggest war light. Negative spaces momentarily filled. The existence of “war/ness” amongst people so unlikely to be recognized, but immeasurably brave.

Assembling stories from a grain of sand

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Set in post war London a beautiful study of family relationships, love,aching loss, substitute relationships and growing up on very rocky foundations. Resilience and various facades of resilience that developed in individuals as they went through the long and deep reverberations left by wartime experiences. An excellent reader who you don’t really register as he just draws you in to the story.

Beautiful, tender and exquisitely sad.

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I had great expectations with this being a man booker nominated read. Certain aspects I loved; the historical period, the sublime language. Simply a shame the story is somewhat dull, I only wish the author had written the story from a more interesting characters perspective such as the sister, Rachel.

The audible presentation is faultless and the narrator wonderful.

Oh dear, a tad on the dull side.......

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From the first page to the last, I found this to be a great novel to listen to. The narrator's voice was just perfect for this tale of skullduggery and espionage during and after WW2. The cast of characters was both entertaining and intriguing and the historical details were well-researched and often unusual.
A war story with a difference and a really nice, satisfying twist at the end. Utterly believable.

Loved every minute.

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Oddly intimate and enveloping ,
Drawing the reader into his world with vivid memorable images captured in the mind like old monochrome images.

Quality writing

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