Yann Martel
Yann Martel
Yann Martelis a Spanish-born Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, a #1 international bestseller published in more than 50 territories. It has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the Bestseller Lists of the New York Times and The Globe and Mail, among many other bestseller lists. It was adapted to the screen and directed by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscarsincluding Best Director and won the...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 June 1963
CitySalamanca, Spain
CountryCanada
Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans." Yann Martel in Life of Pi, Page 25
I can't live for more than four years outside of Canada. I'm Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.
Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims.
I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.
I love Canada. Its a wonderful political act of faith that exists atop a breathtakingly beautiful land.
Words are much better at relating emotions and thoughts.
Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
[The taxidermist is] a historian, dealing with an animal's past; the zookeeper is a politician, dealing with an animal's present; and everyone else is a citizen who must decide on that animal's future (...) The indifference of the many, combined with the active hatred of the few, has sealed the fate of animals.
My greatest wish - other than salvation - was to have a book.
If you write genre fiction, you follow the rules, and you have to follow them because readers expect that.
I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it.
The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book.
I ask you, is it the fig tree's fault that it's not the season for figs? What kind of thing is that to do to an innocent tree, wither it instantly?