"Let me tell you a secret: the name of the greatest living writer of the generation born in the sixties is Yann Martel." —L'Humanité "A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction and its human creators, and in the original power of storytellers like Martel." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Yann Martel b Spain First published The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, a collection of short stories Writing career took off with Life of Pi – Mann Booker – Best seller; 41 languages – Movie – 4 Academy Awards

Setting: The Emergency. – Indira Gandhi was India’s Prime Minister – Election scandal – State of Emergency – New Elections

Pi’s father - nervous. Moving to Canada Stop in Tomatlán, Mexico

Impact of Setting Religion “A story that will make you believe in God.” Link between stories and religious beliefs.

The French Quarter: Pondicherry, India

Munnar, one of the Hill Stations in India

Pondicherry Botanical Gardens

The Pondicherry Promenade

Life of Pi can be classified as: a postcolonial novel a work of magical realism a coming-of-age tale an adventure story flirts with nonfiction

The Importance of Storytelling A story… within a story… within a story 3 Frames First, author’s note Then, life on sea Then, true(?) story

Motifs (situations, incidents, ideas, or images repeated significantly in a literary work) Territorial dominance – Though Martel's text deals with the seemingly boundless nature of the sea, it also studies the strictness of boundaries, borders, and demarcations. The Will to Live – This is a story about what humans will do to stay alive The Nature of Truth – By the end of the story, readers question factual truth versus metaphoric truth. The Nature of Faith – characters achieve comfort through the practice of rituals – For Pi, faith is a form of certainty; he dislikes agnostics because they refuse to commit

Symbols