I needed to stay focused, to keep track of the changing locations and time passing. The story held me, so that wasn't difficult. What was difficult was not really knowing anything about the time, place, and events that this story concerns.
I'm sorry I didn't write a review immediately after reading, as my full impressions have seeped through the spaces in my memory. I did mark it as a keeper, so I know I hoped to read it again. ( )

I am a big fan of Jean Giono’s work. Yet I can readily understand that he speaks to me in a way that may not resonate with others in the least; I can understand that someone else might be baffled and simply not “get” why I am so enamored of Giono. I suspect that the same is true of Ondaatje and that people are either fans or simply do not understand the attraction. I was looking at the reviews of this work on Goodreads and found a sentence that I think applies not only to this novel but to all of the Ondaatje books I have read so far. The reviewer noted that some people found Anil’s Ghost to be “composed of fragments. I would rather say it is composed of silences between them.” So much of what is moving about Ondaatje’s work is about the silences. To be sure, he is a master stylist; his writing is lyrical, limpid, and so many other adjectives I could select. And that is a great attraction. But even more, his stories exist in the silences, the unspoken, the unsaid.
To the extent you need to know what the “story” is about: an expatriate forensic pathologist returns to Sri Lanka after an absence of fifteen years. She has been sent by an international human rights group and the plot, such as it is, revolves around her work with a government archaeologist to identify the bones of the victims of that country’s long-running civil war. Who can be trusted, who can’t, and why. But the plot, as intriguing and illuminating as it is—Ondaatje chooses it, I think, to offer himself a platform for his thoughts on the civil war (which are worth reading)—is only a means to an end and that end is Ondaatje’s ruminations. Read this book. It’s not his best but increasingly I find myself coming to the conclusion that he hasn’t written anything that isn’t worth your time. ( )

I loved The English Patient, and Michael Ondaatje has written another powerful novel here. This is a very disturbing story takes place during the decades-long wars and uprisings in Sri Lanka. The protagonist is a forensic anthropologist who is a native of Sri Lanka but had not lived there for 15 years. She is sent there in order to do a study of killings by all 3 sides in the conflicts, in order to try to gain an understanding of the amount & horrific nature of same. During that time she has done studies in many different countries. The real life trauma of most of the people of that unfortunate country has been extreme, and still are. This book gets right to the heart of a lot of that pain. ( )

Reason read: alpha for O. ROOT, TIOLI, read a Canadian Author
This book has been on my shelf for awhile (4/15/22) but I did not know anything about it except I had read and liked The English Patient. This story is set in Sri Lanka during the 1980s and the civil wars. The main character Anil Tissera is a forensic pathologist returning to her home country on a program to investigate human rights. I found the book interesting from that perspective. The book intertwines nameless victims, wishing for peace and chaos. Awards included the Governor General's Award for English Language Fiction and the Geller Award. ( )

En 1992. Anil, tras quince años de ausencia, regresa a Sri Lanka. La ONU le ha encargado, dada su especialidad como antropóloga forense, que lleve a cabo una investigación. El país vive entre convulsiones sangrientas, con tres fuerzas en conflicto: los Tigres Tamiles, el Ejército Popular de Liberación y los grupos paramilitares. El gobierno asigna a Anil un colaborador, el doctor Sarath Diyasena, profesor universitario experto en arqueología y que parece tener contactos en todas partes... Juntos improvisarán un laboratorio en el cual examinarán los restos de un esqueleto encontrado donde no correspondía. Para Anil la experiencia es brutal. Ha vuelto a un país diferente donde la barbarie tiene un denominador común: no lleva Arma. Sri Lanka es el horror y la luz, es la selva del asceta Thirama, es el país del escultor Ananda, que reconstruirá los rasgos del rostro del esqueleto a partir de su calavera, y es también el país de Gamini, un cirujano por cuyo hospital desfilan las víctimas de los atentados... En ese caleidoscopio de emociones y de encuentros. Anil no podrá distinguir entre amigos y enemigos, ni siquiera cuando el peligro se haga insoportable.