Life of Pi sort of with a capital 'S' – something that would direct my life." He spoke of being lonely and needing direction in his life, and found that writing the novel met this need. The name of Martel's tiger, Richard Parker, was inspired by a character in Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" (1838). In this book, Richard Parker is a mutineer who is stranded and eventually cannibalized on the hull of an overturned ship (and there is a dog aboard who is named Tiger). The author also had in mind another occurrence
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (novel) My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (novel) My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a novel by Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, published in 1954. It is presented as a collection of related - but not always sequential - narratives. The stories recount the fate of a small West African boy. After he and his elder brother are abandoned by his family, they flee as armed slave traders approach their village. On becoming separated from his brother, who has likely been captured by the slave traders, he unwittingly enters the bush, or wilderness. He is too young and inexperienced