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
Booker Prize prize, and a winner is chosen. Unlike the real Man Booker (1969 through 2014), writers from outside the Commonwealth are also considered. In 2008, the winner for 1948 was Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country", beating Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead", Graham Greene's "The Heart of the Matter" and Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One". In 2015, the winner for 1915 was Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier", beating "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (John Buchan), "Of Human Bondage" (W. Somerset Maugham), "Psmith, Journalist" (P. G. Wodehouse) and "The Voyage Out" (Virginia Woolf). Booker Prize The Man Booker Prize for Fiction