Yann Martel facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yann Martel
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Martel in 2007
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| Born | June 25, 1963 Salamanca, Spain |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Alma mater | Trent University |
| Period | 1988–present |
| Notable works | Life of Pi, Beatrice and Virgil, The High Mountains of Portugal |
| Partner | Alice Kuipers (2002–present) |
| Children | 4 |
| Relatives | Émile Martel (father) |
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Yann Martel (born June 25, 1963) is a Canadian author. He wrote the famous book Life of Pi, which won the Man Booker Prize. This book was sold in over 50 countries!
More than 12 million copies of Life of Pi have been sold around the world. It was on bestseller lists for over a year. The book Life of Pi was made into a movie by Ang Lee. The movie won four Academy Awards, including Best Director.
Martel has also written other books like The High Mountains of Portugal, Beatrice and Virgil, and Self. He also wrote a collection of short stories called The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios. Another book is 101 Letters to a Prime Minister, which is a collection of letters he sent to Canada's Prime Minister.
Yann Martel has won several writing awards. These include the 2001 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. He also won the 2002 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.
Martel lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with his wife, writer Alice Kuipers. They have four children. Even though his first language is French, he writes his books in English.
Contents
Yann Martel's Early Life
Yann Martel was born in Salamanca, Spain, in 1963. His parents, Émile Martel and Nicole Perron, were French-Canadians studying in Spain. His family moved around a lot when he was young. They lived in Portugal, Spain, and even Fairbanks, Alaska.
His parents later joined the Canadian foreign service. This meant Martel grew up in places like San José, Costa Rica; Paris, France; and Madrid, Spain. He also spent time in Ottawa, Ontario. He finished high school in Port Hope, Ontario. Then, he studied philosophy at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.
How Martel Started Writing
As an adult, Martel worked many different jobs. He was a parking lot attendant and a dishwasher. He also worked as a security guard at the Canadian Embassy in Paris. He traveled a lot too, visiting Mexico, South America, Iran, Turkey, and India.
Martel began writing when he was at university. He wrote plays and short stories. He described his early writings as "blighted by immaturity and dreadful." In 2003, Martel moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with Alice Kuipers.
Yann Martel's Writing Career
Martel's first story, Mister Ali and the Barrelmaker, was published in 1988. Another short story, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, won the 1991 Journey Prize. He also won a National Magazine Award for his story The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton.
Martel says that The Canada Council for the Arts helped him a lot. They gave him grants to support his writing in 1991 and 1997. In his book Life of Pi, he thanked them. He wrote that supporting artists helps us keep our imagination alive.
First Books and Life of Pi
In 1993, a collection of Martel's short stories was published. It was called The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios. His first novel, Self, came out in 1996.
Martel's second novel, Life of Pi, was published on September 11, 2001. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2002. It became a huge bestseller, staying on The New York Times Bestseller List for 61 weeks. Martel was inspired to write the story after reading a review of a book about sharing a lifeboat with a wild animal.
Life of Pi was chosen for the 2003 CBC Radio's Canada Reads competition. Its French translation was also part of a similar competition in 2004.
Teaching and Later Works
In 2002, Martel taught a course called "The Animal in Literature" in Berlin. From 2003, he was the writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library. He also worked with a composer, Omar Daniel, on a music piece.
From 2005 to 2007, Martel was a visiting scholar at the University of Saskatchewan.
His third novel, Beatrice and Virgil, was released in 2010. This book uses a story about a writer, a taxidermist, and two stuffed animals to explore difficult topics.
From 2007 to 2011, Martel had a unique book club. He sent a book every two weeks to the then Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. He sent over a hundred books in total. These letters were published as a book in 2012, called 101 Letters to a Prime Minister.
Martel became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2014. He also served on the Board of Governors for the Saskatoon Public Library.
His fourth novel, The High Mountains of Portugal, was published in 2016. It tells the stories of three different people in Portugal. The book quickly became a New York Times Bestseller.
Yann Martel's Published Works
- Seven Stories (1993)
- The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (Collection of four short stories) (1993)
- Self (1996)
- Life of Pi (2001)
- We Ate the Children Last (Short story) (2004)
- Beatrice and Virgil (2010)
- 101 Letters to a Prime Minister: The Complete Letters to Stephen Harper (2012)
- The High Mountains of Portugal (2016)
- Son of Nobody (2026)
Awards and Recognitions
For The High Mountains of Portugal
For Beatrice and Virgil
- New York Times Bestseller 2010
- Boston Globe Bestseller
- Los Angeles Times Bestseller
- Longlisted for the 2012 International Dublin Literary Award
For Life of Pi
- Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
- New York Times Bestseller List 2002–03 (61 weeks)
- Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature 2002
- Winner of the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction 2001
- Winner of The Boeke Prize 2003 (South Africa)
- Winner of the Deutscher Bücherpreis, 2004
For 'The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios' (short story)
- Winner of the 1991 Journey Prize
Film and Stage Adaptations
Movies Based on Martel's Work
- Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee in 2012. This movie won many awards. Yann Martel himself has a small role in the movie as an extra.
- His short story We Ate the Children Last was made into an independent film.
- Manners of Dying, directed by Jeremy Peter Allen in 2004.
Plays Based on Martel's Work
- Beatrice and Virgil, adapted for the stage in 2013.
- Life of Pi, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti. This play uses puppets to show the animals from the story. It was performed in 2019.
What Inspired Yann Martel
Martel has often said that Dante's Divine Comedy is the most impressive book he has ever read. He remembers Le Petit Chose by Alphonse Daudet as his most memorable childhood book. He read it when he was ten and it was the first book that made him cry.
Some of the writers who have influenced Martel include Dante Alighieri, Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, and Leo Tolstoy.
Honours and Awards
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Companion of the Order of Canada (C.C.) |
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See also
In Spanish: Yann Martel para niños
