Acclaim for Yann Martel's Life of Pi
"Life of Pi is not just a readable and engaging novel, it's a finely twisted length of yarn—
yarn implying a far-fetched story you can't quite swallow whole, but can't dismiss
outright. Life of Pi is in this tradition—a story of uncertain veracity, made credible by the
art of the yarn-spinner. Like its noteworthy ancestors, among which I take to be Robinson
Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, the Ancient Mariner, Moby Dick and Pincher Martin, it's a
tale of disaster at sea coupled with miraculous survival—a boys' adventure for
grownups." —Margaret Atwood, The Sunday Times (London)
"A fabulous romp through an imagination by turns ecstatic, cunning, despairing and
resilient, this novel is an impressive achievement. . . . Martel displays the clever voice
and tremendous storytelling skills of an emerging master." —Publisher's Weekly (starred
review)
"[Life of Pi] has a buoyant, exotic, insistence reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe's most
Gothic fiction. . . . Oddities
abound and the storytelling is first-rate. Yann Martel has written a novel full of grisly
reality, outlandish plot, inventive setting and thought-provoking questions about the value
and purpose of fiction."