Yann Martel

Yann Martel
Yann Martel in 2007
Born	June 25, 1963 (age 53) Salamanca, Spain
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Canadian
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)
Relatives	Émile Martel, father

Yann Martel (born 25 June 1963) is a Spanish-born Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, a #1 international bestseller published in more than 50 territories. It has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the Bestseller Lists of the New York Times and The Globe and Mail, among many other bestseller lists. It was adapted to the screen and directed by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars (the most for the event) including Best Director and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

Martel is also the author of the novels The High Mountains of Portugal,Beatrice and Virgil and Self, the collection of stories The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, and a collection of letters to the prime minister of Canada, 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. He has won a number of literary prizes, including the 2001 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the 2002 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.

He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.

Although his first language is French, Yann Martel writes in English: "English is the language in which I best express the subtlety of life. But I must say that French is the language closest to my heart. And for this same reason, English gives me a sufficient distance to write."

The son of Nicole Perron and Émile Martel, French-speaking Quebecers, Yann Martel was born in Salamanca, Spain where his parents were studying at the University of Salamanca. His mother was enrolled in Hispanic Studies, while his father was working on a PhD on the Spanish writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. Soon after his birth, the family moved, first to Coimbra, Portugal, and Madrid, Spain, and then to Fairbanks, Alaska, and Victoria, British Columbia, where his father taught at the Universities of Alaska and Victoria, respectively. His parents subsequently joined the Canadian foreign service, first his father then his mother, and he was therefore raised in San José, Costa Rica; Paris, France; Madrid, Spain, with stints in Ottawa, Ontario, in between postings. Martel completed his final two years of high school at Trinity College School, a boarding school in Port Hope, Ontario, Ontario, and completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.