The Coexistence of Regional, Ethnic, Religious Motifs and Other Subcultures in Michael Ondaatje’s Fiction.

Michael Ondaatje’s fiction and especially his famous novel The English Patient deal above all with the coexistence of regional, ethnic, religious and other subcultures. If in the novel, In The Skin of a Lion, the Italian community plays an important role, in The English Patient it ìs the Indian kip to offer a non-European, or better a non-British perspective, while a sort of gender representation is sided by references to the so called subcultures of the Bedouins, the Indians and even the Italians. Then, the English Patient himself is that “International Bastard” as he - the Hungarian explorer, called the English spy in the novel- defines himself in the novel. In Anil’s Ghost, certainly regional, ethnic and religious differences create atrocities, civil war and innocent victims.