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
Beatrice and Virgil was around $3 million, probably the highest ever advance for a single Canadian novel. Martel's earlier novel, "Life of Pi", won the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and sold seven million copies worldwide. Early on in the story, the protagonist, an author, (some say that the protagonist is a reflection of Yann himself) makes reference to Primo Levi's "If This Is a Man"; Art Spiegelman's "Maus"; David Grossman's "See Under: Love"; Martin Amis's "Time's Arrow"; George Orwell's "Animal Farm"; Albert Camus's "The Plague"; and Pablo Picasso's "Guernica". Extracts are quoted from Flaubert's "The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator" which