At first, Pi is terrified of the animals and jumps into the ocean. Tragically, Pi’s family and the ship’s sailors all drown, but Pi finds himself in a lifeboat with a hyena, zebra, orang-utan and an enormous tiger. On the way, there is a terrible storm and the ship sinks. Some of the animals are sold to zoos in North America and the family travel by ship to Canada taking the animals with them. Worried about the future, Pi’s parents decide to close the zoo and emigrate to Canada. When Pi is 16, a new government is elected that his parents don’t support. From that moment, his family and teachers decide to let him make his own mind up about religion. When his family and teachers ask him to choose just one religion, Pi refuses, saying 'I just want to love God'. To everyone’s surprise, Pi declares himself to be simultaneously Hindu, Muslim and Christian. Though his family is Hindu, he is curious about other religions and he makes friends with a Christian priest and a Muslim baker. Here, Pi comes to appreciate the beauty of nature and learns a lot about animal psychology and behaviour. When they aren’t at school, Pi and his brother help out at the zoo. His father owns and runs the city zoo and the family home is in the zoo complex. In the first part of the book, we learn about Pi’s childhood in the city of Pondicherry in India.

After finishing university in Canada, he spent two years travelling round India and then decided to devote himself to writing. Martel is the son of a diplomat and as a child lived in Costa Rica, Canada, France and Mexico. Since then, it has sold over seven million copies worldwide, won several prizes and been translated into 41 languages.

It is the third book by the Canadian author Yann Martel, and was published in 2001. The Life of Pi tells the extraordinary story of Pi, a teenage boy from India, who is shipwrecked and finds himself trapped in a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a ferocious tiger.

Life of pi novel by yann martel