Life of Pi Life of Pi Life of Pi is a Canadian fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry who explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The novel has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. It was rejected by at least five London publishing houses before being accepted by Knopf Canada, which published it in September 2001. The UK edition won
Life of Pi (film) Lee. In Canada, novelist Yann Martel meets Pi Patel; Martel has been told that Pi's life story would be a good subject for a book. Pi tells his story to Yann: Pi's father names him Piscine Molitor Patel after the swimming pool in France. In secondary school in Pondicherry, he adopts the name "Pi" (the Greek letter, ) to avoid the sound-alike nickname "Pissing Patel". He is raised in a Hindu family, but at 12 years old, is introduced to Christianity and then Islam, and decides to follow all three religions as he "just wants to love God". His mother