Life of Pi (35 page)

Longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize

Deepest Siberia, 1919. Deep in the unforgiving landscape a town lies under the military rule of a Kurtz-like commander, awaiting the remorseless assault of Bolsheviks along the Trans-Siberian railway. A shunned Christian community, the townspeople remain committed to practising their esoteric religion.

Then Samarin arrives, appearing from the woods with tales of escape from Russia’s northernmost prison camp and of pursuit by a cannibal known only as ‘The Mohican’. Anna, a beautiful young widow, feels something for the new arrival. Then the local shaman is found dead, and suspicion and terror engulf the little town.

‘The best and most original book I have read for years.’ Louis de Bernières

‘Spellbinding. Though set in the past, this feels like the most contemporary fiction you’ll ever read … A truly great read.’ Irvine Welsh

‘A quite extraordinary novel … the language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling. And what a narrative! What a story!’ Philip Pullman

£
7.99

ISBN 978 1 84195 706 7

www.canongate.net

Yann Martel was born in 1963 and lives in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan.
Life of Pi
, his second novel, was published to international acclaim in over forty countries and won the 2002 Man Booker Prize. He is presently working on a novel and an essay, both on the murder of the Jews of Europe at the hands of the Nazis.