The 2002 novel Life of Pi won Yann Martel the Man Booker Prize. An international bestseller with more than seven million copies sold, it catapulted its Canadian author to fame. Ahead of his appearance at the Dundee Literary Festival on June 9, Yann told Jack McKeown about his latest work, Beatrice and Virgil.
Yann Martel is trying to get the Canadian Prime Minister reading. For the last three years he’s sent his country’s premier, Stephen Harper, a different book every two weeks, with an accompanying letter.
“The campaign continues,” he declares. “Recently, I’ve been doing the promotional tour for Beatrice and Virgil so I’ve asked some fellow Canadian writers to keep sending books while I’m away.
“The last one I sent was book 76. We’re now up to 81 and I think book 82 is going in the mail later today. We’ve got a website www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca which tells people about the campaign.”
Yann began bombarding Harper with books after being invited to Canada’s House of Commons in 2007 and being less than overwhelmed with the Prime Minister’s performance.
“It strikes me that Stephen Harper is a man who hasn’t read a novel, a poem or a play since he left university,” he explains. “There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re just a citizen, but I think in the case of someone who has power over me I’m entitled to know what has nourished their imagination.”
While Yann has yet to gain a response from Harper, a world leader who appreciates him more is the President of the United States, who wrote to him earlier this year.
The handwritten note says: “Mr Martel My daughter and I just finished reading Life of Pi together. Both of us agree we prefer the story with animals. It is a lovely book an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling. Thank you. Barack Obama.”
“Receiving that letter was quite amazing,” he continues. “It was brief, but it was a very thoughtful and eloquent handwritten note. I think I must be the first writer from Saskatoon to receive a letter from the President of the United States.
“Barack Obama is a man who reads. You can tell that by his oratory. Literature has informed his oratory and his thinking. He is a man built by words and he has impressed the whole world.”
Yann’s own first published book was the 1993 short story collection, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios. It was followed in 1996 by the novel Self, which features a travelling writer who wakes up on his 18th birthday to find he’s turned into a woman.
The son of Canadian diplomats, Yann (46) was born in Spain and grew up all over the world.
“We were in Portugal for a few years, then in Alaska, Costa Rica, France, Mexico and Canada. I went to boarding school in Ontario.
“After school I travelled quite a bit. I spent a year in India over the course of three trips, and travelled in Iran, Turkey and America. I spent 10 years living in Paris.”
Yann currently lives in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan with his partner Alice Kuipers, a children’s novelist who wrote the award-winning Life on the Refrigerator Door, a story told exclusively through notes exchanged between a mother and a daughter on the door of their fridge. They have a 10-month old son, Theoh.
Life of Pi was published in 2002 and was a runaway success, winning the Man-Booker Prize and selling more than seven million copies in 45 countries.
“I was delighted that so many people connected with it. I spent two years touring the world after winning the Booker, and I loved it. Going places I’d never been before and meeting people who’d read and liked it.”
Life of Pi is set to be turned into a film by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, though there have been recent reports the project might be put on hold because of budgetary constraints.
“I’ve got a meeting about the film project in LA next week,” Yann says. “I suspect it will go ahead. Ang Lee has been working on it for quite a while and the script has gone through several rewrites.
“I’ve met him and had a two-hour phone conversation about the project. He’s a very good director and I trust him.”
Yann will be in Dundee on June 9 to read from his latest novel and answer questions.
“I’ve been to quite a few places in Scotland but never Dundee, so I’m looking forward to it. It’s always a pleasure to meet readers. Every reader brings their own imagination and experience of life to each book they read.”
Following up a universally acclaimed Man Booker Prize-winning work that sold seven million copies must be daunting, and the total advance for the book is reported to have been around $3 million.
“I don’t feel any pressure at all,” Yann says. “The only pressure I feel is internal, trying to achieve what I set myself to do. Readers’ expectations are not my own.
“I was delighted that Life of Pi was a such a success, but you don’t write for success you write to tell a story.
“Life of Pi was profoundly uncommercial. It’s about an Indian boy on a boat with a tiger. For me, the real joy of Life of Pi was in writing it.”
Beatrice and Virgil was released last week.
“It’s an allegory. I wanted to write about the holocaust without explicitly mentioning the holocaust. It’s the story of a writer who meets a taxidermist. The taxidermist has been working on a play for a number of years and asks the writer for help.
“He introduces the writer to the two characters in his play, a stuffed donkey and a monkey, both of whom are exhibits in his shop. The donkey and monkey’s conversation is interspersed between that of the taxidermist and the writer.”
Yann seems to have a fondness for giving animals prominent character roles in his novels.
“It’s just what works for me,” he shrugs. “With other people it’s other things, but animals work for me.”
Yann Martel is at the Dundee Literary Festival on June 9 at 6pm to read from his latest novel and take questions. The event takes place in Dundee University’s Dalhousie Building. Tickets are free and are available by going to www.literarydundee.co.uk or phoning 01382 384413.
Life of Pi was published in 2002 and was a runaway success, winning the Man-Booker Prize and selling more than seven million copies in 45 countries.
“I was delighted that so many people connected with it. I spent two years touring the world after winning the Booker, and I loved it. Going places I’d never been before and meeting people who’d read and liked it.”
Life of Pi is set to be turned into a film by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, though there have been recent reports the project might be put on hold because of budgetary constraints.
“I’ve got a meeting about the film project in LA next week,” Yann says. “I suspect it will go ahead. Ang Lee has been working on it for quite a while and the script has gone through several rewrites.
“I’ve met him and had a two-hour phone conversation about the project. He’s a very good director and I trust him.”
Yann will be in Dundee on June 9 to read from his latest novel and answer questions.
“I’ve been to quite a few places in Scotland but never Dundee, so I’m looking forward to it. It’s always a pleasure to meet readers. Every reader brings their own imagination and experience of life to each book they read.”
Following up a universally acclaimed Man Booker Prize-winning work that sold seven million copies must be daunting, and the total advance for the book is reported to have been around $3 million.
“I don’t feel any pressure at all,” Yann says. “The only pressure I feel is internal, trying to achieve what I set myself to do. Readers’ expectations are not my own.
“I was delighted that Life of Pi was a such a success, but you don’t write for success you write to tell a story.
“Life of Pi was profoundly uncommercial. It’s about an Indian boy on a boat with a tiger. For me, the real joy of Life of Pi was in writing it.”
Beatrice and Virgil was released last week.
“It’s an allegory. I wanted to write about the holocaust without explicitly mentioning the holocaust. It’s the story of a writer who meets a taxidermist. The taxidermist has been working on a play for a number of years and asks the writer for help.
“He introduces the writer to the two characters in his play, a stuffed donkey and a monkey, both of whom are exhibits in his shop. The donkey and monkey’s conversation is interspersed between that of the taxidermist and the writer.”
Yann seems to have a fondness for giving animals prominent character roles in his novels.
“It’s just what works for me,” he shrugs. “With other people it’s other things, but animals work for me.”
Yann Martel is at the Dundee Literary Festival on June 9 at 6pm to read from his latest novel and take questions. The event takes place in Dundee University’s Dalhousie Building. Tickets are free and are available by going to www.literarydundee.co.uk or phoning 01382 384413.