Life of Pi by MARTEL, Yann (born 1963)

Toronto, ON: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2001. [Booker Prize Winner] SIGNED AND INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION. Octavo (23 x 16cm), pp.352. Publisher's yellow paper-covered boards with red titles, front edge untrimmed, in pictorial dust-jacket illustrated by Jamie Bennett and designed by Spencer Francey Peters. Inscribed to the title page by Martel to Edward Milward-Oliver, author, archivist, and film historian. Internally clean, with no marks. Some minor bumping to spine-ends. Dust-wrapper is clean and bright. Fine. When transporting their family zoo overseas, the ship founders, and Pi is left adrift at sea in a lifeboat. He survives alone in the boat with a tiger for the best part of eight months, and experiences a number of spiritual revelations during his journey. It could be described as part Coelho's "The Alchemist", part Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea". Adapted into an Oscar winning film in 2012, directed by Ang Lee and starring among others Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, and Gerard Depardieu.