Yann Martel Yann Martel Yann Martel (born 25 June 1963) is a Spanish-born Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel "Life of Pi", a #1 international bestseller published in more than 50 territories. It has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the Bestseller Lists of the "New York Times" and "The Globe and Mail", among many other best-selling lists. It was adapted to the screen and directed by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars (the most for the event) including Best Director and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
Life of Pi sort of with a capital 'S' – something that would direct my life." He spoke of being lonely and needing direction in his life, and found that writing the novel met this need. The name of Martel's tiger, Richard Parker, was inspired by a character in Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" (1838). In this book, Richard Parker is a mutineer who is stranded and eventually cannibalized on the hull of an overturned ship (and there is a dog aboard who is named Tiger). The author also had in mind another occurrence