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This brilliant novel combines the delight of Kipling's "Just So Stories" with the metaphysical adventure of "Jonah and the Whale, " as Pi, the son of a zookeeper, is marooned aboard a lifeboat with four wild animals. His knowledge and cunning allow him to coexist for 227 days with Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger.

Life of Pi

Review by Julie Hale

Martel won the Man Booker Prize in 2002 for this wonderfully original novel, which recounts the remarkable life of Pi Patel. The son of a zookeeper, Pi is raised in Pondicherry, India, with a deep understanding of the natural world and a curiosity about religion that leads him from Hinduism to Christianity to Islam and beyond. When his father decides to move the family to Canada, they set off on a freighter, animals in tow. But a shipwreck leaves Pi drifting in the Pacific on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena and a Bengal tiger for company. Floating in the shark-filled water for 227 days, Pi somehow survives, battling starvation, the elements and his own worst fears—and befriending the tiger. Martel skillfully blends Pi's adventures of the mind and spirit with an unforgettable physical journey, making this a magical coming-of-age narrative.

A reading group guide is included in the book.

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Publisher Comments

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with 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?