Life of Pi - Hardcover

by Yann Martel (Author)

After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a 16-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan--and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again.

The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

Front Jacket

A boy. A tiger. And the vast Pacific Ocean.

This is a novel of such rare and wondrous storytelling that it may, as one character claims, make you believe in God.

Can a reader ask for anything more?

This is a book that has been read, treasured, and shared by millions of readers. It is a book that, since its publication just 10 years ago, has been translated into 41 languages and is sold in 45 countries. It has been compared to Robinson Crusoe and Aesop s fables, the work of Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Joseph Conrad. It is an adventure and a survival story, a proof of life and faith, a challenge to our sense of the possible, the universal, and the miraculous. It is, in fact, a modern classic.

Open these pages and slip into a wondrous world, despite being almost entirely confined to a lifeboat, wholly expands our understanding of ourselves, the world, and the joys and responsibilities of our place in it.
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Back Jacket

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
MORE THAN SEVEN MILLION COPIES SOLD

New York Times Bestseller * Los Angeles Times Bestseller * Washington Post Bestseller * San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller * Chicago Tribune Bestseller

"A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction." Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Nothing short of miraculous. It's an adventure tale so filled with love for the animal kingdom that it ought to roar." Denver Post

"Although the book reverberates with echoes from sources as disparate at Robinson Crusoe and Aesop's fables, the work it most strongly recalls is Ernest Hemingway's own foray into existentialist parable, The Old Man and the Sea." The New York Times Book Review

"A fantastical tale." USA Today

"A real adventure: brutal, tender, expressive, dramatic, and disarmingly funny." San Francisco Chronicle

"Readers familiar with Margaret Atwood, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Carol Shields should learn to make room on the map of contemporary Canadian fiction for the formidable Yann Martel." Chicago Tribune

"Fantastic in nearly every sense of the word, Life of Pi is a gripping adventure story, a parable about the place of human beings in the universe and a tantalizing work of metafiction . . . Laced with wit, spiced with terror, it's a book by an extraordinary talent." San Jose Mercury News

"If this century produces a classic work of survival literature, Martel is surely a contender." The Nation

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Yann Martel, the son of diplomats, was born in Spain in 1963. He grew up in Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Alaska, and Canada and as an adult has spent time in Iran, Turkey, and India. After studying philosophy in college, he worked at various odd jobs until he began earning his living as a writer at the age of 27. He lives in Montreal.