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
Women's Prize for Fiction the campaign and then thousands of people from the "general public" submitted their ideas via Twitter. The 20 winners were announced 29 July 2014. The organizers noted that over half the winning books were published before 1960. The fact that the prize excludes male writers has provoked comment. After the prize was founded, Auberon Waugh nicknamed it the "Lemon Prize," while Germaine Greer said there would soon be a prize for "writers with red hair". A. S. Byatt, who won the 1990 Man Booker Prize, said it was a "sexist prize", claiming "such a prize was never needed". She refused