Life of Pi

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific.The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi—a 16-year-old Indian boy.The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years.

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is a transformative novel, a dazzling work of imagination that will delight and astound readers in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling and a tale that will, as one character puts it, make you believe in God.

For book group discussions, take a look at our Reading Group Notes.

Praise for Life of Pi:

‘Impressive enough to make you, as the old man said, believe in God…Martel has hit on a marvellous notion and revels in elaborating it…The story positively sparkles with originality.’

Scotsman

‘Absurd, macabre, unreliable and sad, deeply sensual in its evoking of smells and sights, the whole trip and the narrator’s insanely curious voice (which evokes an intellectual humming-bird compelled to sip deep from every possible blossom) suggests Joseph Conrad and Salman Rushdie hallucinating together over the meaning of The Old Man and the Sea and Gulliver’s Travels.’

Financial Times

‘An extraordinary novel.’

New York Times

‘It is a story so magical, so playful, so harrowing and astonishing…Every page offers something of tension, humanity, surprise, or even ecstasy.’

The Times