Yann Martel’s warmly engaging philosophical novel is brimming with invention, ideas and playful conceits. A true modern classic
By Yann Martel
The Man Booker Prize 2002
- Winner
- Longlist
The year of a new sponsor – the Man Group – and a rejected novel, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, which went on to become one of the biggest-selling books in the prize’s history.
The Canadian Martel had been turned down by five London publishing houses unable to grasp his book’s mix of adventure and allegory before it was taken on by Canongate. It proved a shrewd, and profitable, signing: the novel not only became the inaugural winner of the Man Booker Prize but has now sold in excess of 10 million copies worldwide and been adapted into a hugely successful film.
President Barack Obama is a fan, writing to Martel that the novel represents ‘an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling’.
Watch the ceremony
Life of Pi
Winner of The Booker Prize 2002
- By
- Yann Martel
- Published by
- Canongate
Yann Martel’s warmly engaging philosophical novel is brimming with invention, ideas and playful conceits. A true modern classic
The shortlist
In Rohinton Mistry’s drama about a Parsi family in Bombay, a painful past and a present deception combine to unravel the ties of affection
Carol Shields explores the bonds between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, and what happens when abstract ideas are put to the test
William Trevor’s haunting story of loss and hope captures the atmosphere of a country in turmoil and the heart-rending emotions of a family torn apart
Sarah Waters offers an intriguing blend of mystery and suspense, secrets and betrayal in her evocative Victorian underworld page-turner
By Sarah Waters
Tim Winton’s modern love story about people stifled by grief or regret, whose dreams are lost, and whose hopes have all but dried up
By Tim Winton
The longlist
The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds & Dr Glas
by Dannie Abse
Shroud
by John Banville
Critical Injuries
by Joan Barfoot
Any Human Heart
by William Boyd
The Next Big Thing
by Anita Brookner
Peacetime
by Robert Edric
Spies
by Michael Frayn
Still Here
by Linda Grant
The Mulberry Empire
by Philip Hensher
Who's Sorry Now?
by Howard Jacobson
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel (prize winner)
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
by Jon McGregor
Family Matters
by Rohinton Mistry
Dorian
by Will Self
Unless
by Carol Shields
The Autograph Man
by Zadie Smith
To the Last City
by Colin Thubron
The Story of Lucy Gault
by William Trevor
Fingersmith
by Sarah Waters
Dirt Music
by Tim Winton
