Winner of the Man Booker Prize“Nothing since Cormac McCarthy’s The Road has shaken me like this.” —The Washington PostFrom the author of the acclaimed Gould’s Book of Fish, a magisterial novel of love and war that traces the life of one man from World War II to the present. August, 1943: Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. His … Evans is haunted by his affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. His life, in a brutal Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma Death Railway, is a daily struggle to save the men under his command. Until he receives a letter that will change him forever.
A savagely beautiful novel about the many forms of good and evil, of truth and transcendence, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.
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This book was a triumph. It was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. I had no idea the Japanese were building this seemingly impossible railroad through the Burmese jungle using slave labor in the middle of WWII. The characters were realistic — most of them were indeed real people — but their struggle to survive was amazing, …
An incredible read.