Additional information
by Yann Martel (Author)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "Fifteen years after The Life of Pi, Yann Martel is taking us on another long journey. Fans of his Man Booker Prize-winning novel will recognize familiar themes from that seafaring phenomenon, but the itinerary in this imaginative new book is entirely fresh. . . . Martel's writing has never been more charming."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR
In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tom s 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.
"I took away indelible images from High Mountains, enchanting and disturbing at the same time. . . . As whimsical as Martel's magic realism can be, grief informs every step of the book's three journeys. In the course of the novel we burrow ever further into the heart of an ape, pure and threatening at once, our precursor, ourselves."--NPR "Refreshing, surprising and filled with sparkling moments of humor and insight."--The Dallas Morning News "We're fortunate to have brilliant writers using their fiction to meditate on a paradox we need urgently to consider--the unbridgeable gap and the unbreakable bond between human and animal, our impossible self-alienation from our world."--Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian " Martel packs] his inventive novel with beguiling ideas. What connects an inept curator to a haunted pathologist to a smitten politician across more than seventy-five years is the author's ability to conjure up something uncanny at the end."--The Boston Globe "A fine home, and story, in which to find oneself."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
Author Biography
Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the global bestseller that won the 2002 Man Booker Prize (among other honors) and was adapted to the screen in the Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. He is also the author of the short story collection The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, the novels Self and Beatrice and Virgil, and the nonfiction work 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. 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, Canada, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.
