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
Yann Martel
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
Winner 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
