Yann Martel

Martel was born in Spain to Canadian diplomat parents and grew up moving among Costa Rica, France, Mexico, and Canada, a rootless childhood that fed his fiction's interest in displacement and reinvention. He studied philosophy at Trent University before years of odd jobs while writing.

Life of Pi, partly inspired by a Brazilian novel he read a review of but never located, took over four years to write and was rejected by several publishers before winning the Booker Prize in 2002 and selling many millions of copies worldwide.

He has continued writing fiction that tests belief and storytelling's power, including a controversial years-long letter-writing campaign sending books to the Canadian prime minister.