Book summary

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.

Media 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."