Add to wish list | Link to this book | Add your own review

Click on this books subject categories to see related titles:
Subjects > Fiction genres > Mystery & crime
Subjects > Fiction themes > Family & friendship > Brothers
Subjects > Fiction themes > Family & friendship > Sibling rivalry
Subjects > Fiction themes > Legal, courtroom & crime > Murder
Subjects > Fiction themes > Literary genres & types of novels > Psychological realism
Subjects > Fiction themes > Psychology
Subjects > Fiction themes > Types of characters > Doctors, physicians
Subjects > Fiction themes > Politics
Subjects > Fiction themes > Politics > Civil war
Subjects > Fiction themes > Politics > Disappeared persons
Subjects > Fiction themes > Politics > Political corruption
Subjects > Fiction themes > Religion & beliefs > Buddhism
Subjects > Fiction themes > War & military > War crimes
Subjects > Fiction themes > Work & the workplace > Anthropology
Subjects > Fiction themes > Work & the workplace > Archaeology
Subjects > Fiction themes > Human qualities & behavior > Brutality & cruelty
Subjects > Fiction themes > War & military > Homefront conditions
Subjects > Fiction themes > Family & friendship > Returning home
Subjects > 1990s
Subjects > Fiction themes > War & military > Postwar conditions
Subjects > Dead - identification
Subjects > Human rights workers
Subjects > Women forensic anthropologists



About This Book:

Title: Anil's Ghost

Other Available Formats:
Hardcover, 2000
Audio Cassette, 2000
Compact Disc, 2000
Hardcover, 2000
Paperback, 2001
Paperback, 2001
Paperback, 2001
Paperback, 2005

Synopsis
Michael Ondaatje explores the aftermath of the civil war in Sri Lanka, his homeland, in this story of an anthropologist living in America. She returns to Sri Lanka to investigate a suspected mass murder, and becomes part of a team that unearths the bodies of the "disappeared." A large cast of characters shares the narrative, including a doctor kidnapped by rebel insurgents, a blind recluse, and an enigmatic archaeologist. This novel won the 2000 Canadian Governor General's Award for Fiction, and was a New York Times Notable Book for the year 2000.

Details
Language:        English

Size
Length:        443 Pages



Publisher Notes
First Line: When the team reached the site at five-thirty in the morning, one or two family members would be waiting for them. And they would be present all day while Anil and the others worked, never leaving; they spelled each other so someone always stayed, as if to ensure that the evidence would not be lost again. This vigil for the dead, for these half-revealed forms.




Industry Reviews
"The aftershocks of the recent bloody civil war in Sri Lanka...are explored with commanding poetic intensity....The reader becomes lost in thickets of speculation and reverie. Impressive and often fascinating, but not a success. There's ample evidence that Ondaatje worked diligently, and perhaps for several years, on ANIL'S GHOST. But he doesn't seem to have finished it."
(03/15/2000)
"Ondaatje's moral concerns are more central here than in his earlier works, and his politics more nuanced. [D]abblings in heavy-handed Third World solidarity are gone, replaced by a darker, deeper emotional bedrock: the hard-bitten, half-desperate solidarity of men and women who have been pushed to the breaking point by the dreadful things they have seen but who nevertheless refuse to stop fighting. Any book by Ondaatje is an event, and ANIL'S GHOST is an impressive achievement. Like all of his books, it is a work of high moral and aesthetic seriousness, suffused with a deep affection for and understanding of human beings and compassion for their lot. And there is, of course, exquisite writing. Ondaatje has set himself a daunting problem: to write a narrative about a matter of extreme moral gravity, keep it as clean and unsentimental and straightforward as the subject requires and also make it a poem, get it off the ground. He doesn't always succeed, but when he does, the liftoff is almost palpable."
(04/24/2000)
"The novel begins well: Ondaatje creates tension, edginess and mystery....The structure of ANIL'S GHOST is a nightmare....It makes a demand on the reader that I found hard to meet. There are unacceptable longueurs, almost as if real time had to be observed in the novel. But that is not the overwhelming problem. I suddenly realised exactly why it is that I can't get on with Ondaatje. It is because almost everything he writes asks for awe in the reader, and I don't think awe is something that can be sustained."
(May 2000)


Show Amazon Customer Reviews

Book Details Summary: The title of this book is Anil's Ghost and it was written by Michael Ondaatje. This edition of Anil's Ghost is in a Book format. This books publish date is January 2000 and it has a suggested retail price of $. There are 443 pages in the book and it was published by Thorndike Press. The 10 digit ISBN is 075402377X and the 13 digit ISBN is 9780754023777. For the most current lowest price, Click Here.