1. "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

2. Yann Martel b. 1963 - 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

3. Setting: The Emergency. – Indira Gandhi was India’s Prime Minister - 1966 – Election scandal – State of Emergency – New Elections

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

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

8. The French Quarter: Pondicherry, India

9. Munnar, one of the Hill Stations in India

10. Pondicherry Botanical Gardens

11. The Pondicherry Promenade

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Symbols