Author:Michael Ondaatje
From the acclaimed author of The English Patient comes a stunningly beautiful novel about a boy's life-changing journey from Ceylon to England in the 1950s.
What had there been before such a ship in my life? A dugout canoe on a river journey? A launch in Trincomalee harbour? There were always fishing boats on our horizon. But I could never imagine the grandeur of this castle that was to cross the sea.
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner in Colombo bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the lowly 'cat's table' , as far from the Captain's table as can be, with a ragtag group of adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship crosses the Indian Ocean the boys tumble from one adventure to another, and at night they spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and fate a mystery that will haunt them forever...
One of the most admirable and enthralling literary novels of the year
—— Daily MailExtraordinary
—— GuardianSuperbly poised between the magic of innocence and the melancholy of experience
—— The EconomistMichael Ondaatje's impressive new novel, containing dreams and fantasy between a ship's flanks...is, in the most etymological way, a wonderful novel: one full of wonders
—— Philip Hensher , Daily TelegraphAtmospheric, elegiac and at times, like Ondaatje's most famous novel, The English Patient, unbearably poignant
—— Sebastian Shakespeare , TatlerI love this book: the boys running wild on the long sea voyage, the slow revelation of the adult world they don't fully understand, the loss of the past and the beginning of the future, and even a sort of thriller in there! And the beauty of the sentences. Perfection
—— Salman RushdieWondrous
—— Financial TimesPart memoir, complete masterpiece... Written with tenderness, wisdom and sharp emotional recall, this is an exuberant elegy to innocence
—— Maggie Fergusson , Intelligent LifeGrave and playful at the same time, beautifully written and moving
—— The TimesIt's impossible to explain through any discussion of plot and character the hypnotic brilliance of The Cat's Table. The joy of boyhood and the darkness at its edges are conveyed in sense of extraordinary imagination... It is entirely...well, Ondaatje-esque
—— Kamila Shamsie , Guardian, Books of the YearVividly follows the passage from Ceylon to England of an 10 year-old boy on a line full of eccentric, mysterious passengers
—— Ann Saddlemyer , Irish Times, Books of the YearOndaatje's prose, flawless as ever, deals with loneliness, friendship and pre-pubescent love
—— Christine Dwyer Hickey , Irish Times, Books of the Year
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