Anil's Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of the civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America who returns to Sri Lanka as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human-rights group to investigate the organized murder campaigns engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past - a story propelled by a riveting mystery.

`This is why I read, this is why literature matters, this, in short, is IT! . . . By the closing pages Anil's Ghost has come as close to a holy book as a novel should' Independent

`This work of "fiction" will endure as a history of these times showing us how we may face even the most extreme actions of our civilization through wise, compassionate re-creation' Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

`It is Ondaatje's extraordinary achievement to use magic in order to make the blood of his own country real . . . Nowhere has he written more beautifully' New York Times Book Review

`A truly wondrous book . . . I was enthralled as I have not been since The English Patient' Ariel Dorfman, author of Death and the Maiden