Anil's Ghost
First edition
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| Author | Michael Ondaatje |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | John Gall |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical Fiction, Crime Fiction |
| Publisher | McClelland & Stewart |
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Publication date
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March 30, 2000 |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 43391071 |
Anil’s Ghost is the critically acclaimed fourth novel by Michael Ondaatje. It was first published in 2000 by McClelland and Stewart.
Anil’s Ghost follows the life of Anil Tissera, a native Sri Lankan who left to study in Britain and then the United States on a scholarship, during which time she has become a forensic pathologist. She returns to Sri Lanka in the midst of its merciless civil war as part of a Human Rights Investigation by the United Nations. Anil, along with archaeologist Sarath Diyasena, discovers the skeleton of a recently murdered man in an ancient burial ground which is also a government-protected zone. Believing the murder to be politically motivated, Anil and Sarath set out to identify the skeleton, nicknamed Sailor, and bring about justice for the nameless victims of the war.
The title of the novel may be a reference to various elements within the narrative. Anil's Ghost could refer to Anil's struggle to unify her past in Sri Lanka and America with her present life; it may also refer to Sailor, the skeleton which Anil and Sarath work to identify, and which symbolizes, in a single entity, all the victims of war. It is, in this reading, the destruction of innocent lives that haunts Anil and drives her to identify the victim as well as the culprit who killed him.
Another interpretation could be that it references the "ghosts" of Sri Lankan atrocities that affect everyone Anil meets during her time there. Every character in the book has deep psychological scars from the violence. Finally, the archaeologist Sarath may be Anil's ghost: His sacrifice at the end of the novel lives on as a memory in Anil and others; as such, he lives on as a ghost. Ananda, indeed, refers to "the ghost of Sarath," and how he and Anil will always carry it.
The story opens up in early March as Anil arrives in Sri Lanka after a 15-year absence abroad. Her visit comes as a result of the increasing number of deaths in Sri Lanka from all the warring sides in the 1980s' civil war. While on an expedition with archeologist Sarath, Anil notices that the bones of a certain skeleton do not seem to be 6th century like the rest which leads her to conclude that the skeleton must be a recent death. Unsure where Sarath’s political allegiance lies, Anil is skeptical of his help, but agrees to it anyway.
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