The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Identity first edition cover.
Author	Robert Ludlum
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Jason Bourne Bourne Trilogy
Genre(s)	Thriller, Spy novel
Publisher	Richard Marek
Publication date	February 1980
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	523 pp (first edition)
ISBN	0399900705
OCLC Number	5675357
Dewey Decimal	813/.5/4
LC Classification	PZ4.L9455 Bo PS3562.U26
Followed by	The Bourne Supremacy

The Bourne Identity is a 1980 spy fiction thriller novel by Robert Ludlum about a retrograde amnesiac who must discover who he is and why several groups, including an assassin and the CIA, are trying to kill him. It is the first of the Bourne Conspiracy novels written by Ludlum, and later Eric Van Lustbader, featuring Jason Bourne.

The Bourne Identity was voted the second best spy novel of all-time, behind John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by Publishers Weekly. ^[1][2]

The novel was adapted into a 1988 television mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith, and a 2002 movie starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente and Chris Cooper.

[edit] Plot summary

The protagonist is found floating in the Mediterranean Sea with several bullet wounds, including a head wound which results in amnesia. The doctor treating him finds a message surgically embedded in his hip that contains details of a Swiss bank account, presumably held anonymously.

In Zürich, Switzerland, the protagonist learns that his name is Jason Bourne. While attempting to retrace his previous visit to the city he attracts the attention of several people who either fear him, warn him of danger, or try to kill him — but they all unhelpfully assume that he already knows why. He begins to suspect, on the basis of circumstantial evidence, that he may have been a professional assassin. In Zürich he meets a woman named Marie St Jacques and, on the spur of the moment, uses her as a disguise and shield to escape an attempt on his life in a crowded convention hotel.

Over the course of the novel, Bourne begins to discover everything that had led up to him being found in the Mediterranean. He is soon forced into a confrontation with Carlos the Jackal himself, only for the assassin to escape him after he runs out of ammunition and CIA operatives led by Alexander Conklin enter the area.

The 1988 miniseries is reasonably true to the plot of the novel, but the 2002 film excludes the sub-plot about the terrorist Carlos the Jackal and, equally or more significantly, the fact of Bourne's innocence.

[edit] Sequels

Ludlum wrote two sequel novels to The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. After Ludlum's death, author Eric Van Lustbader continued the story of Jason Bourne in The Bourne Legacy, The Bourne Betrayal, The Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception (2009) and The Bourne Objective (2010).

[edit] Publication history

[edit] Other similar stories

• The 1987 Tamil movie Vetri Vizha, starring Kamal Haasan, is a loose adaptation of this novel.
• The teen novel series The Sleeper Conspiracy by Tom Sniegoski is similar to the Bourne series.
• The underlying storyline of the Belgian comic series XIII is similar to The Bourne Identity.
• Surprisingly a Hindi Movie Tumko Na Bhool Paayenge, starring Salman Khan, Sushmita Sen and Dia Mirza, based on 'The Bourne Identity ' was too released in the same year 2002.

[edit] References

1. ^ Crime Fiction Dossier: Top 15 Spy Novels
2. ^ The Rap Sheet: Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy