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
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