Anils Ghost

Anil's Ghost is Michael Ondaatje's 2000 novel set in post-civil war Sri Lanka, following a forensic anthropologist who returns to her homeland to identify the remains of the disappeared. The narrative weaves between Anil's investigation, the lives of those who assist her, and the country's fragmented history of violence and loss.

Ondaatje constructs the novel as a series of interconnected stories rather than a straightforward plot. Anil, a Sri Lankan expatriate trained in the West, partners with Sarath, a local government archaeologist, to examine skeletal remains in caves and mass graves. As they work, the boundaries between official records and hidden truths blur. The prose is precise and layered, moving between present investigation and past tragedy, examining how individuals survive and bear witness in societies marked by state terror.

The book explores identity, exile, and the impossibility of objective documentation in contexts of political trauma. Ondaatje's spare, meditative language emphasizes what remains unsaid - the gaps in evidence, the silence of the dead, the complexity of those caught between allegiances. Published in 2000, it won the Booker Prize and remains a landmark work of post-conflict fiction.

• Author: Michael Ondaatje
• Year published: 2000
• Genre: Literary fiction
• Setting: Post-civil war Sri Lanka
• Length: Approximately 320 pages

Available nationwide across Pakistan with Cash on Delivery. Order online and pay upon receipt.