Career
In 2001, he published Life of Pi, which was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2002. Life of Pi was later chosen for the 2003 edition of CBC Radio's Canada Reads competition, where it was championed by author Nancy Lee. In addition, its French translation, Histoire de Pi, was included in the French version of the competition, Le combat des livres, in 2004, championed by singer Louise Forestier.
Martel spent a year in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan from September 2003 as the public library's writer-in-residence. He collaborated with Omar Daniel, composer-in-residence at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, on a piece for piano, string quartet and bass. The composition, You Are Where You Are, is based on text written by Martel, which includes parts of cellphone conversations taken from moments in an ordinary day.
In November 2005, the University of Saskatchewan announced that Martel would be scholar-in-residence.
His novel Beatrice and Virgil deals with the Holocaust: its main characters are two stuffed animals (a monkey and a donkey) along with several other animals depicted in a taxidermy shop. Martel describes them as simply two approaches to the same subject.
From 2007 to 2011, Martel worked on a project entitled What is Stephen Harper Reading?, where he sent the Prime Minister of Canada one book every two weeks that portrays "stillness" with an accompanying explanatory note. He posted his letters, book selections and responses received to a website devoted to the project. A book-length account of the project was published in the fall of 2009. Martel ended the project in February 2011, after sending Harper a total of 100 books.
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