TORONTO, November 26, 2003 -- Awarding winning Canadian author Yann Martel will read from his best-selling novel Life of Pi at York University on Thursday, Dec. 4, at 7:30 p.m.
Martel’s reading is part of York’s fifth annual Canadian Writers in Person series, which gives students and the public alike an opportunity to get up close and personal with their favourite Canadian authors.
"Martel is one of Canada’s most impressive literary talents," said series organizer John Unrau, an English professor in York’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies. "The Canadian Writers in Person series at York has garnered a reputation for showcasing some of this country’s best novelists and poets."
Life of Pi (Knopf Canada, 2001) is the story of Pi Patel, who becomes shipwrecked when the cargo ship carrying his family from India to Canada sinks in the Pacific Ocean. Pi is cast adrift in a lifeboat with the unlikeliest of travelling companions: a zebra, an orang-utan, a hyena, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Pi is witness to the playing out of the food chain. When only the tiger is left of the seafaring menagerie, Pi realizes that his survival depends on his ability to keep from being Richard Parker’s next meal.
Born in Spain in 1963, Yann Martel won the Booker Prize in 2002 for Life of Pi. His work includes The Facts Behind The Helsinki Roccamatios and Other Stories (1993) and Self: A Novel (1996). He has just ended a year as Samuel Fischer-Gastprofessor at the Free University of Berlin, and is currently writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library.
This free, public reading will take place in York’s Stedman Lecture Hall "D", 4700 Keele Street.
The series is sponsored by the Master's Office and the School of Arts and Letters of the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, and the Atkinson students' and alumni associations at York University, with the support of the Canada Council, and a number of other benefactors.
**For further information, members of the public should contact: 416-736-5870.
-30-
For further information, members of the media should contact:
Ken Turriff
Media Relations
York University
416-736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
YU/141/03