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
The Pi Man good and evil. This draws him into conflict, first with his secretary, and then with the FBI. "The Pi Man" was a finalist for the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. "Kirkus Reviews" considered it to be a "chilling masterpiece", and John Hertz has lauded it as "coruscating, gripping, (and) strange". "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" has posited that Marko's abilities were the basis for the similar abilities of the protagonist in Bester's 1981 novel "The Deceivers", while James Nicoll has noted that the story would work just as well if one assumes that Marko's "justifications for atrocity are