Life of Pi: A Novel (The Man Booker Prize Winner) | Yann Martel
Life of Pi: A Novel (The Man Booker Prize Winner) | Yann Martel
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OVER FOURTEEN MILLION COPIES SOLD
Winner of The Man Booker Prize
The international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play.
"A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction."—Los Angeles Times Book Review
A Boy. A Lifeboat. A Bengal Tiger. 227 Days at Sea. When Survival Becomes a Story, What Do We Choose to Believe?
After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan—and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.
Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again.
The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional—but is it more true?
Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.
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About the Author
Yann Martel
Yann Martel is an internationally acclaimed Canadian novelist, best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi. Born in Salamanca, Spain, in 1963 to Canadian parents, he grew up in several countries and studied philosophy at Trent University in Ontario. His multicultural upbringing and philosophical interests have profoundly influenced his literary imagination.
Martel began his literary career with the short-story collection The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (1993), followed by his debut novel Self (1996), an experimental exploration of identity and gender.
His international breakthrough came with Life of Pi (2001), the extraordinary story of a young Indian castaway stranded in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger. Blending survival adventure, religious philosophy, and allegory, the novel examines faith, truth, storytelling, and the human need to find meaning. It won the 2002 Man Booker Prize, has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, and has been published in over 50 languages. Its 2012 film adaptation, directed by Ang Lee, won four Academy Awards.
His subsequent novels include Beatrice and Virgil (2010), an unsettling animal allegory exploring the Holocaust and historical memory, and The High Mountains of Portugal (2016), three interconnected stories examining grief, religion, love, and the search for meaning.
In March 2026, Martel published his fifth novel, Son of Nobody, an imaginative retelling of the Trojan War inspired by Homer's Iliad. Combining an ancient soldier's story with that of a contemporary scholar, the novel explores history, memory, family, ambition, and the enduring power of storytelling.
Martel is also the author of 101 Letters to a Prime Minister (2012), a nonfiction collection of letters recommending books to former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and reflecting on the importance of literature in public life.
A Companion of the Order of Canada, Martel lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His distinctive fiction combines philosophical inquiry, religious symbolism, imaginative storytelling, and moral complexity, challenging readers to reconsider the boundaries between belief, imagination, and reality.
Explore the Author’s Literary Genres｜探索作者獨特文學類型
#宗教哲學寓言 Religious Philosophical Allegory · #海上求生小說 Maritime Survival Fiction · #動物寓言 Animal Allegory · #大屠殺寓言 Holocaust Allegory · #實驗性身份小說 Experimental Identity Fiction · #古典史詩改寫 Classical Epic Retellings · #後現代敘事 Postmodern Narrative Fiction · #宗教象徵文學 Religious Symbolism in Literature · #書信體非小說 Epistolary Nonfiction
Product details
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Publication
Mariner Classics
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Author
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Language
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Pages
319
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ISBN-13
9780156027328