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
Man Booker International Prize was "fast becoming the more significant award, appearing an ever more competent alternative to the Nobel". In 2015 it was announced that the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize would be disbanded. The prize money from that award would be folded into the Man Booker International Prize, and the latter would become what the Independent prize used to be: a yearly book award for English translations, with the prize split between author and translator. Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare was named the inaugural International Prize winner in 2005. Head judge, Professor John Carey said Kadare is "a universal writer in the tradition of