Background Information
About the Author:
Yann Martel is a Canadian author best known of his Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi. Yann Martel was born in 1963, in Spain. He grew up in Alaska, British Columbia, Costa Rica, France, Ontario and Mexico, and continued to travel as an adult in Iran, Turkey and India.
After studying philosophy at Trent University, he had done various odd jobs, such as tree planting, dishwashing, and working as a security guard. Then he began to write at age 27. In addition to Life of Pi, Martel is the prize-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, a collection of short stories, and many other books that published internationally.
He divides his time between yoga, writing and volunteering in a palliative care unit. Yann Martel lives in Montreal, Canada.
About the Book:
Life of Pi is set at the tumultuous period of Indian history known as the Emergency.
“In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found guilty of charges related to her 1971 election campaign and was ordered to resign. Instead—and in response to a rising tide of strikes and protests that were paralyzing the government—Gandhi declared a state of emergency, suspending constitutional rights and giving herself the power to rule by decree. The Emergency lasted for eighteen months and was officially ended in March 1977 when Gandhi called for a new round of elections. The historical legacy of the Emergency has been highly controversial: while civilliberties in this emerging democracy were severely curtailed and Gandhi’s political opponents found themselves jailed, abused, and tortured, India’s economy experienced a much-needed stabilization and growth. In Life of Pi, Piscine (Pi) Molitor Patel’s father, a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India, grows nervous about the current political situation. Speculating that Gandhi might try to take over his zoo and faced with depressing economic conditions, Pi’s father decides to sell off his zoo animals and move his family to Canada, thus setting the main action of the novel into motion.” (From "Life of Pi." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 18 May 2013.)
Yann Martel is a Canadian author best known of his Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi. Yann Martel was born in 1963, in Spain. He grew up in Alaska, British Columbia, Costa Rica, France, Ontario and Mexico, and continued to travel as an adult in Iran, Turkey and India.
After studying philosophy at Trent University, he had done various odd jobs, such as tree planting, dishwashing, and working as a security guard. Then he began to write at age 27. In addition to Life of Pi, Martel is the prize-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, a collection of short stories, and many other books that published internationally.
He divides his time between yoga, writing and volunteering in a palliative care unit. Yann Martel lives in Montreal, Canada.
About the Book:
Life of Pi is set at the tumultuous period of Indian history known as the Emergency.
“In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found guilty of charges related to her 1971 election campaign and was ordered to resign. Instead—and in response to a rising tide of strikes and protests that were paralyzing the government—Gandhi declared a state of emergency, suspending constitutional rights and giving herself the power to rule by decree. The Emergency lasted for eighteen months and was officially ended in March 1977 when Gandhi called for a new round of elections. The historical legacy of the Emergency has been highly controversial: while civilliberties in this emerging democracy were severely curtailed and Gandhi’s political opponents found themselves jailed, abused, and tortured, India’s economy experienced a much-needed stabilization and growth. In Life of Pi, Piscine (Pi) Molitor Patel’s father, a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India, grows nervous about the current political situation. Speculating that Gandhi might try to take over his zoo and faced with depressing economic conditions, Pi’s father decides to sell off his zoo animals and move his family to Canada, thus setting the main action of the novel into motion.” (From "Life of Pi." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 18 May 2013.)