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
Tiger in a Tropical Storm not return to the jungle theme for another seven years, with the exhibition of "Struggle for Life" (now lost) at the 1898 Salon. Responses to his work were little changed; following this exhibition, one critic wrote, "Rousseau continued to express his visions on canvas in implausible jungles... grown from the depths of a lake of absinthe, he shows us the bloody battles of animals escaped from the wooden-horse-maker" (Morris & Green, 142). Another five years passed before the next jungle scene, "Scouts Attacked by a Tiger" (1904). The tiger appears in at least three more of his paintings: "Tiger Hunt"