A review of Life of Pi by Yann Martel and Dirt Music by Tim Winton.

The Booker Prize for literature is not usually accompanied by theological proclamations, but 2002 was different. The Booker is given each year to what is judged as the best work of contemporary fiction by a writer from the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. In 2002, it was won by Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, a previously obscure writer who begins his novel with an author’s note on how he came to be given ‘a story to make you believe in God’. It recounts the voyage of Piscine Molitor Patel ("Pi"), the son of an Indian zookeeper who, in a reversal of the Noah’s ark story, gets shipwrecked along with his family and zoo animals en route to Canada. Pi finds himself in a lifeboat with very few supplies for 227 days, accompanied by an enormous Bengal tiger, a zebra, a hyena and an orang-utan. He survives to tell his tale a couple of investigators, who can’t bring themselves to believe it. Life of Pi is delightful in parts, written with a whimsical touch, combining fantasy, graphic horror, folklore and humour to carry the reader happily along to an optimistic ending.

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