Life of Pi

Life of Pi is a novel by the Canadian writer Yann Martel, published in 2001, narrated largely by Piscine Molitor Patel, known as Pi, an Indian boy from Pondicherry whose family runs a zoo before deciding to emigrate to Canada, selling several of their animals to zoos abroad and boarding a cargo ship to transport the rest. When the ship sinks in the Pacific Ocean, Pi survives 227 days adrift in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and an adult Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and the novel follows his increasingly desperate efforts to survive alongside a tiger he can neither escape nor fully tame, as the other animals are killed off and the two are left locked in an uneasy, dangerous coexistence. Framed by an author figure who is told the story is one that will make him believe in God, the novel closes with Pi, once rescued, offering shipping officials a second, far more brutal account of the same voyage without any animals at all, and inviting them, and the reader, to choose which version of events they prefer to believe. Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002 and became an international bestseller, selling more than ten million copies and prompting a 2012 film adaptation directed by Ang Lee.