Warlight cover art

Warlight

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Warlight

By: Michael Ondaatje
Narrated by: George Blagden
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

Buy Now for $21.99

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.

-------
‘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

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
A beautifully written but tedious book with an intricate but ultimately uninteresting storyline; even the narrator sounded bored.

Set in post war London two children are left in the care of 2 unrelated adults with dubious, mildly criminal backgrounds whilst the mother continues with unconvincing espionage work which ultimately exposes her children to risk. This author is no John Le Carre. There is a final plot twist/reveal but by then I hardly cared.

Unnecessarily disjointed plot

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was completely absorbed by the lives of Nathaniel, the Moth and the Darter, and at times moved to tears. This is a book largely about honourable and kind men, who lived on the margins, or had crossed into the criminal world.

Deeply moving

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
brilliantly read. novel lacked some of the order/structureI was looking for. Worth a listen. characters v well crafted.

ambling, some great moments

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Warlight had me at the first line "In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals." Warlight was a bit like sitting through a 3hr epic movie where you get a vague idea of what's going on through the lens of a childs memory. Then the second half the child is an adult and as he discovers more about his past so does the reader. I can't say I loved it, it was a slow and steady burn that given the first line I thought might be far more thrilling than it was.

Had me at the 1st line

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Of course, this is beautifully written. It is crafted, structured and illuminating. It is historically interesting. The characters are all fascinating, but intentionally not rounded. Life, the picture we paint if it, is intricate in places and blurred with the smudged areas that we fill in and make up to create the illusion of completeness or understanding. This is Nathaniel making sense growing up and reflecting on a tumultuous, but very post war England, adolescence.

Smudged Life Painting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is another marvellous creation by Michael Ondatjje. What he creates is the story of secret wartime work in England and it's incidental but profound effect on an adolescent boy and his sister. Deprived of his mother and vaguely watched over by a shifting group of people who come to the house, get him odd jobs, involve him in minor criminality. His life never really moves on as he spends years trying to piece together his mother's life and her wartime activities.
The reader is excellently chosen, though his reading initially comes across as flat and uninvolving. Gradually, you perceive the character emerging through this performance, but you do require quiet conditions or ideally headphones to hear it.
As a listener whose early childhood was in the fifties I appreciated the writer's recreation of those uncertain times, with the evidence of destruction everywhere but nobody speaking about the profound experiences they had gone through; and when 'a tube of toothpaste cost a precise amount of money'.

Audible?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well deserving of a second or third listen. A young boys interpretations and inferences about characters that he and his sister were left with during WW2. His awareness of love as imagined through a relationship that his mother has w a man she has known from childhood. The character development is stunning as is the narration.

Warlight - a review

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It seems to me Ondaatje is a quietly reflective writer. Here, as in his other works, the primary dramatic action is happening somewhere else. Here we see the world through the lens of the protagonist as he finds and integrates the pieces of his life. Vibrant characters and scenes are still present and enjoyable. Often I need an audiobook to relax to. One that is quiet and intelligent and reflective, but with enough to hold my interest. This fits beautifully.

Ondaatje style

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I could not recommend this book at all. The storyline was fine but the repetition became exasperating.

Repetitive, slow, wearing questioning style

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved the first third but didn't enjoy the rest of the book. The narrator was great though.

A U-turn

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.