Life of Pi

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In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away. There was much I had to do.

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orangutan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi - a 16 year-old Indian boy.

Yann Martel's Life of Pi is a transformative novel, a dazzling work of imagination that will delight and astound readers in equal measure. It is a timeless, thought-provoking novel that won the Man Booker Prize and became an international phenomenon.

About the Author

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of Canadian parents. After studying philosophy at university, he travelled and worked at odds jobs before turning to writing. In addition to Life of Pi, he is the author of the novels Self and Beatrice and Virgil, the stories The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, and the collection of letters to the Prime Minister of Canada, What is Stephen Harper Reading?. Yann Martel lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.