Yann Martel out that he could not have stolen from a work he had not at the time read, and he willingly acknowledged being influenced by the New York Times review of Scliar's work and thanked him in the Author's Note of Life of Pi. "Life of Pi" was later chosen for the 2003 edition of CBC Radio's "Canada Reads" competition, where it was championed by author Nancy Lee. In addition, its French translation, "Histoire de Pi", was included in the French version of the competition, "Le combat des livres", in 2004, championed by singer Louise Forestier. Martel was the Samuel Fischer
Yann Martel Martel is also the author of the novels "The High Mountains of Portugal", "Beatrice and Virgil" and "Self", the collection of stories "The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios", and a collection of letters to the prime minister of Canada, "101 Letters to a Prime Minister". He has won a number of literary prizes, including the 2001 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the 2002 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children. Although his first language is French, Yann Martel writes in English: "English is the language in which