This novel is based on the life of cornet player Buddy Bolden, one of the legendary jazz pioneers of turn-of-the-century New Orleans. Ostensibly a novel, the book is a documentary recreation of Bolden's life.

Michael Ondaatje is the author of The English Patient, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1992. Coming Through Slaughter was Ondaatje's first novel.

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