Life of Pi [Hardcover]

Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.

 

The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days 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 Piis 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.

Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Let me tell you a secret: the name of the greatest living writer of the generation born in the sixties is Yann Martel. --L'Humanité

A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction and its human creators, and in the original power of storytellers like Martel. -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
“If this century produces a classic work of survival literature, Martel is surely a contender.’--The Nation
Beautifully fantastical and spirited. -- Salon

Martel displays the clever voice and tremendousl32