WARLIGHT

(Cape £16.99) ThIS week, Michael ondaatje won the Golden Man Booker Prize for his 1992 book The english Patient.

Almost as good, and sharing a similar preoccupation with the impact of war, his first novel in seven years is set in london in the twilight aftermath of World War II.

It centres on two siblings whose parents have seemingly departed overseas with little explanation.

Narrated by the younger brother, Nathaniel, from the vantage point of middle-age, it’s an exquisite, elegiac account of a life forged in the shadow of other people’s secrets, told in language as feathery and delicate as a moth.