Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of Canadian parents. After studying philosophy at university, he travelled and worked at odd jobs before turning to writing. In addition to the Man Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi, which has been translated into over fifty languages and has sold over thirteen million copies worldwide, he is the author of the novels Self, Beatrice and Virgil and The High Mountains of Portugal, the stories The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, and the collection of letters to the Prime Minister of Canada, What is Stephen Harper Reading? He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Yann Martel is the author of a short story collection, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, and of four novels, Self, Beatrice & Virgil, Life of Pi (for which he was awarded the 2002 Man Booker Prize), and his latest, The High Mountains of Portugal. Life of Pi was adapted for the silver screen by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars. Martel also ran a guerilla book club with Stephen Harper, sending the former prime minister of Canada a book every two weeks for four years. The letters that accompanied the books were published as 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. Martel lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with the writer Alice Kuipers, and their four children.