The English Patient

"Sacred Hunger was the joint winner of the Booker Prize in 1992, alongside another work of historical fiction, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient , in which an aristocratic aviator, grievously burned in a plane crash, is tended by a nurse in a Tuscan monastery during the Second World War. The English Patient was adapted into a film directed by Anthony Minghella in 1996."

"I picked it because I felt bad about not talking about Anthony’s The Talented Mr. Ripley ! I wanted to make amends in Anthony’s memory and talk about another film that he made. Also, it gave me a twofer: I could mention Anthony twice, I suppose. The novel was written by Michael Ondaatje. It was published in 1992 and won the Booker Prize . We made the film in 1995 and it was released in 1996. Anthony Minghella wrote and directed it and it won nine Academy Awards. I should give the disclaimer that I directed second unit on the film. The ‘English’ patient is László von Almásy, a Hungarian count and desert explorer, who gets caught up in the North African campaign of World War Two . He is also in a romance with a married English woman, which leads to a tragedy and his near death. Rescued from the crash of his plane, he is brought to Italy and through force of circumstances is left in the care of a young French-Canadian nurse, Hana, in a ruined monastery in Tuscany."