Yann Martel

Yann Martel

Yann Martel  is the author of Life of Pi, the #1 international bestseller and winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize (among many other awards). He is also the award-winning author of The High Mountains of Portugal, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (winner of the Journey Prize), Self, Beatrice & Virgil, and 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. His next novel, Son of Nobody, will be published by Penguin Random House in Spring, 2024. Born in Spain in 1963, Martel studied philosophy at Trent University, worked at odd jobs – tree planter, dishwasher, security guard – and traveled widely before turning to writing. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.

Charming… Most Martellian is the boundless capacity for parable… Martel knows his strengths: passages about the chimpanzee and his owner brim irresistibly with affection and attentiveness.” –The New Yorker

FESTIVAL BOOK

The High Mountains of Portugal

In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that – if he can find it – would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe’s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure.

Thirty years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás’s quest.

Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.

The High Mountains of Portugal – part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable – offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss. Filled with tenderness, humour, and endless surprise, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century – and through the human soul.

In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that – if he can find it – would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe’s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure.

Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the centre of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás’s quest.

Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.

The High Mountains of Portugal – part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable – offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss. Filled with tenderness, humour, and endless surprise, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century – and through the human soul.

GET THE BOOK 

Owl’s Nest Books (Calgary) | Calgary Public Library

BE CURIOUSER

  • Life of Pi author publishing new novel, Son of Nobody, to be released in 2024. -CBC Books

Life of Pi

One boy. One boat. One tiger.

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orangutan–and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and beloved works of fiction in recent years.

GET THE BOOK 

Owl’s Nest Books (Calgary) | Calgary Public Library 

 

ALL EVENTS WITH Yann Martel

7 PM
SuperFan Showcase: André Alexis & Yann Martel
Oct 05 @ 7 PM MT - 8:15 PM MT

Memorial Park Library, 2nd Floor

1221 2 St SW