Yann Martel is the author of The Life of Pi, winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize. The story of a young boy shipwrecked and stranded at sea with a Bengal tiger and other wild animals, The Life of Pi explores issues of spirituality and practicality through the child’s relationships with the animals aboard his lifeboat.  The novel, which earned comparisons to the works of Hemingway, Marquez, and Beckett, became an international bestseller, with millions of copies sold worldwide. In his long-awaited new novel, Beatrice and Virgil, Martel also uses animals to discuss the human condition: in this case, the limitations of language in understanding and describing the horrors of the Holocaust.