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
The White Tiger (Nathan novel) The White Tiger (Nathan novel) The White Tiger is a novel by Robert Stuart Nathan, first published in 1987. The story takes place in China, after the rule of Mao Zedong. The book is divided into four parts, the titles of which are Chinese proverbs. Lu Hong, a policeman in Beijing finds himself in trouble after the death in strange circumstances of his mentor, Sun Sheng. Sheng was a friend of Hong's parents, and originally met them during the Long March with Mao Zedong from 1935 to 1948. Hong suspects that something is hidden behind his mentor's sudden death. He