The lights of war

Nathaniel was fourteen in 1945 when his parents left London with his sister, Rachel, at the end of the war and traveled to Singapore. The siblings entrust their parents to the care of a mysterious figure named Molylepke. Their protégé can probably be an evildoer, Rachel and Nathaniel guess as they slowly get to know the unusual company that nurtures them for many months and teaches them in astonishing forms. The two teenagers are increasingly convinced that their suspicions about Molylepke are not unfounded and trust their stumbled guardians and acquaintances held together by some misty past war service. Twelve years later, Nathaniel rushes to put the fragments of memories together: what really happened to them at that time? Their mother returned months later, without their father, and did not answer any of their questions. London’s gray buildings, sodium vapor lamps, bonfires burning in the unlit streets, flickering traffic lights and mysteriously flying candlelight provide the backdrop for the research, with the result that Nathaniel himself can no longer navigate. Ondaatje’s heartbreaking novel explores an intricate web of appearances and intrigues, violence and love, bringing world success back to one of the most popular writers of the past fifty years. Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje, born in 1943 in Sri Lanka, currently lives in Toronto with his wife. His best-known work is The English Patient, from which nine Oscar-winning film adaptations were made and selected as the best novel in the fifty-year history of the Man Booker Prize. The Lights of War is his seventh novel.