New Releases by Yann Martel

Der internationale Bestseller, der die Welt verzauberte Der moderne Klassiker über Abenteuer, Überleben und die Macht des Erzählens Nach dem Untergang eines Frachtschiffs treibt ein einzelnes Rettungsboot auf dem weiten Pazifik. An Bord: ein sechzehnjähriger Junge, eine Hyäne, ein verletztes Zebra, ein Orang-Utan – und ein 200 Kilo schwerer bengalischer Tiger. Was als Albtraum beginnt, wird zu einer unvergesslichen Reise voller Mut, Instinkt und Glauben. 227 Tage lang ringt Pi Patel mit Hunger, Angst und Hoffnung – und mit dem wilden Tier, das sein gefährlichster Feind und zugleich sein einziger Gefährte ist. Als sie schließlich an der Küste Mexikos stranden, verschwindet der Tiger in den Dschungel – für immer. Die japanischen Ermittler, die Pis Bericht prüfen, glauben ihm kein Wort und fordern ihn auf, "die Wahrheit" zu erzählen. Also berichtet Pi eine zweite Geschichte – weniger fantastisch, dafür umso grausamer. Aber ist sie wirklich wahr? Schiffbruch mit Tiger ist ein packendes Abenteuer und zugleich ein faszinierendes Spiel mit Wirklichkeit und Fiktion – ein Roman über Glauben, Überleben und die rettende Kraft des Erzählens. Zum 25‐jährigen Jubiläum erscheint der Weltbestseller nun in einer neuen, sorgfältig ausgestatteten Ausgabe im Gutkind Verlag – ein Buch, das Generationen bewegt hat und bis heute Leserinnen und Leser auf der ganzen Welt verzaubert. Bei Fragen zur Produktsicherheit, wenden Sie sich bitte an: [email protected]

De langverwachte nieuwe roman van Yann Martel, de auteur van de wereldwijde bestseller Het leven van Pi Het leven van de Canadese wetenschapper Harlow Donne staat volledig in het teken van Homerus. In de krochten van een beroemde bibliotheek in Oxford ontdekt hij een verloren gegaan epos over de Trojaanse Oorlog: de Psoas. Anders dan de Ilias is dit het verhaal van een gewone Griek die naar Troje trekt om te vechten. Door zijn toewijding aan de wetenschap verwaarloost Harlow zijn gezin. Terwijl hij de Psoas vertaalt en voorziet van commentaar, beschrijft hij ook zijn eigen leven met vrouw en dochter. Hij wordt geconfronteerd met vragen over ambitie, familie en verantwoordelijkheid in zowel de Griekse Oudheid als in zijn eigen leven. Zoon van niemand is een fascinerende roman over grote verhalen, over bloed- en huwelijksbanden en de zin en onzin van oorlog. Yann Martel laat zien hoe oude verhalen altijd door blijven zingen. Met Het leven van Pi won Yann Martel de Booker Prize, de belangrijkste prijs uit het Engelse taalgebied. Het boek werd ook zeer succesvol verfilmd door Ang Lee. Martel woont in Saskatoon, Canada. Over Het leven van Pi: 'Het leven van Pi is een fantastisch boek. Het is fris, origineel, slim, geraffineerd en zit vol met meeslepende verhalen.' Margaret Atwood 'Het leven van Pi laat ons geloven in de verbeeldingskracht van de literatuur, in de noodzaak van het betere verhaal.' Stine Jensen, NRC 'Precair evenwicht tussen spel en ernst, fantasie en realisme, een immer verrassende, frisse stijl.' Kristien Hemmerechts, Vrij Nederland Vertaald door Hilje Papma, Marlies Weyergang en Arwin van der Zwan

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Esquire • Marie Claire • Art+ • The Times • The Guardian • The Observer • The Financial Times • BBC • The Sydney Morning Herald • A Globe and Mail Spring 2026 Read • Featured in The American Booksellers Association's Spring 2026 Preview • Oprah Daily • People’s Best Books of March 2026 From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar. “The past is never done with: always the song continues” Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs. In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea, but known to all as son of nobody. As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love, and grief. In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we live—then, now, and always.

"Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true? Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God." -- Publisher's description.

Lizbona rok 1904. Młody chłopak imieniem Tom̀s znajduje stary dziennik. Mowa w nim o niezwykłym artefakcie, który-- o ile istnieje i o ile zostanie odnaleziony-- może odmienić bieg historii. Podróżując jednym z pierwszych automobili, Tom̀s wyrusza na poszukiwanie niezwykłego skarbu. Trzydzieści pięć lat później portugalski patolog, fan kryminałów Agathy Christie, sam wplątuje się dziwną historię, a wydarzenia, w których centrum trafia, okazują się być konsekwencjami poszukiwań Tom̀sa sprzed lat. Kolejne pięćdziesiąt lat później kanadyjski senator, pogrążony w żałobie po śmierci ukochanej żony, znajduje schronienie w wiosce na północy Portugalii. Zjawia się tam z niezwykłym towarzyszem-- szympansem. Trwające blisko sto lat poszukiwania nareszcie zmierzają ku końcowi.

Yann Martel, de succesauteur van Het leven van Pi, bewijst zich met De hoge bergen van Portugal andermaal als een magische meesterverteller. In deze grootse roman verweeft Martel met bravoure de levens van drie mensen die op het eerste gezicht niets met elkaar te maken hebben: de jonge Tomás, een archivaris; Eusebio Lozora, een patholoog; en de Canadese senator Peter Tovy. Wanneer Tomás aan het begin van de twintigste eeuw in de archieven van Lissabon een oud dagboek onder ogen krijgt waarin een geheimzinnig artefact wordt beschreven dat de kerk voor altijd op zijn kop zal zetten, vertrekt hij naar de hoge bergen van Portugal om het te op te sporen. Vijfendertig jaar later raakt een patholoog, die een groot liefhebber is van de moordmysteries van Agatha Christie, betrokken bij de gevolgen van Tomás’ zoektocht. Een halve eeuw later redt senator Peter Tovy, niet lang na het overlijden van zijn vrouw, een chimpansee uit een onderzoeksinstelling in Oklahoma. Wanneer hij besluit zich samen met het dier te vestigen in zijn geboortedorp in het noorden van Portugal, blijkt hoezeer de levens van deze drie mannen met elkaar verbonden zijn. De hoge bergen van Portugal is zowel een fascinerende zoektocht als een magisch-realistische vertelling over de raadselen van het bestaan, waarin diepe liefde en groot verlies hand in hand gaan. Deze gevoelige, humoristische en vooral telkens verrassende roman neemt de lezer mee op een reis die niet alleen naar de binnenlanden van Portugal voert, maar vooral naar de bronnen van de menselijke ziel. Yann Martel (1963) is de bestsellerauteur van Het leven van Pi (2001), waarmee hij onder meer de Man Booker Prize won. Wereldwijd werden er meer dan 12 miljoen exemplaren van verkocht en het stond meer dan een jaar op de bestsellerlijst van The New York Times. Martel woont in Saskatoon, Canada, met zijn vrouw en hun vier kinderen. Over Het leven van Pi: ‘Het leven van Pi is een fantastisch boek. Het is levendig, origineel, slim, geraffineerd en vol liefde.’ MARGARET ATWOOD ‘In Het leven van Pi toont Martel de kwaliteiten van een vindingrijke en fenomenale meesterverteller.’ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ‘Het leven van Pi laat ons geloven in de verbeeldingskracht van de literatuur, in de noodzaak van het betere verhaal.’ NRC HANDELSBLAD

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 Tomás 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. Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás’s quest. Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion. The High Mountains of Portugal—part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable—offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss. Filled with tenderness, humor, and endless surprise, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century—and through the human soul. Praise for The High Mountains of Portugal “Just as ambitious, just as clever, just as existential and spiritual [as Life of Pi] . . . a book that rewards your attention . . . an excellent book club choice.”—San Francisco Chronicle “There’s no denying the simple pleasures to be had in The High Mountains of Portugal.”—Chicago Tribune “Charming . . . Most Martellian is the boundless capacity for parable. . . . Martel knows his strengths: passages about the chimpanzee and his owner brim irresistibly with affection and attentiveness.”—The New Yorker “A rich and rewarding experience . . . [Martel] spins his magic thread of hope and despair, comedy and pathos.”—USA Today “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

A compendium of 101 book recommendations from Booker Prize–winning author Yann Martel (Life of Pi) to Prime Minister Stephen Harper—each with an accompanying letter, together probing the question: what sort of mind, nourished by what, do we want our leaders to have? Politely and unfailingly, every two weeks for almost four years, Yann Martel sent Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper a book and accompanying letter. He completed the project in 2011 with 101 book recommendations. Now, from the mailbox of the Prime Minister’s Office to your bookshelf comes a list of essential reading for all Canadians. This largely one-sided correspondence from the “loneliest book club in the world” (Stephen Harper never personally responded to Yann Martel’s gifts) is a valuable compendium for bibliophiles and those who follow the Canadian political scene. Smart, subversive, signed, sealed, and now available to you . . . even if your address is not 80 Wellington Street.

A modern-day Orlando—edgy, funny and startlingly honest—Self is the fictional autobiography of a young writer and traveller who finds his gender changed overnight.

Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, a female orang-utan - and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Since it was first published in 2002, Life of Pi has entered mainstream consciousness and remains one of the most extraordinary works of fiction in recent years. In October 2005 Canongate launched a competition with The Times to find an artist to illustrate Yann Martel's international bestseller. Soon the competition expanded as the Globe and Mail and The Age newspapers also launched a search in Canada and Australia. From thousands of entries, Croatian artist Tomislav Torjanac was chosen as the illustrator for this new edition of Life of Pi. Now readers can enjoy this extraordinary tale with his glorious colour illustrations.

Het leven van Pi vertelt het ongelooflijke verhaal van Piscine Patel (Pi), een zestienjarige Indiase jongen wiens vader een dierentuin in India heeft. Wanneer de familie besluit het land te verlaten, wordt de hele dierentuin ingescheept. Maar het schip vergaat en de enige overlevenden op de reddingssloep zijn Pi, een hyena, een zebra met een gebroken been en een tijger van 200 kilo. 227 dagen dobbert de sloep over de Grote Oceaan het decor voor een buitengewoon fantasierijke roman. ‘Dit verhaal doet je in God geloven,’ aldus een personage. Dat gaat misschien wat ver, maar wie Het leven van Pi leest, móet wel geloven in de onverwoestbare kracht van verhalen. Yann Martel (1963) werd geboren in Spanje en woont in Montreal, Canada. Hij is de auteur van De geschiedenis van de Roccamatio’s uit Helsinki en de autobiografische roman Zelf. Het leven van Pi won de Man Booker Prize 2002. ‘Het leven van Pi is een fantastisch boek. Het is fris, origineel, slim, geraffineerd en vol van bezielde liefde.’ Margaret Atwood ‘Het leven van Pi laat ons geloven in de verbeeldingskracht van de literatuur, in de noodzaak van het betere verhaal.’ Stine Jensen, NRC Handelsblad ‘Pi = 3,141... en Yann Martel = God.’ Arie Storm, Het Parool ‘Precair evenwicht tussen spel en ernst, fantasie en realisme, een immer verrassende, frisse stijl.’Kristien Hemmerechts, Vrij Nederland

Summary in vernacular field only.

In a brilliant new novel that is as original and luminous as his Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi, Yann Martel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey. When Henry, a writer, receives an envelope containing a play and a note asking for his help, he is intrigued. The author of the play turns out to be a skilled taxidermist, with a shop unlike any Henry has ever seen, bursting with the palpable life of a lost, vibrant world. And when the mysterious, elderly taxidermist introduces Henry to Beatrice and Virgil, his life is changed forever. In Beatrice and Virgil, Martel asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity. 'This is a brilliantly worked, eerily confident performance. There has been nothing like it since his last. And as for writing of animals, no one has been as good as Henry/Martel since D.H. Lawrence and Ted Hughes.' Sydney Morning Herald

Yann Martel’s astonishing novel begins with a successful writer attempting to publish his latest book, made up of a novel and an essay. Henry plans for it to be a “flip book” that the reader can start at either end, reading the novel or the essay first, because both pieces are equally concerned with representations of the Holocaust. Faced with severe and categorical rejection, Henry gives up hope. He abandons writing, moves with his wife to a foreign city, joins a community theatre, becomes a waiter in a chocolatería. But then he receives a package containing a scene from a play, photocopies from a short story by Flaubert—about a man who hunts animals down relentlessly—and a short note: “I need your help.” Intrigued, Henry tracks down his correspondent, and finds himself in a strange part of the city, walking past a stuffed okapi into a taxidermist’s workshop. The taxidermist—also named Henry—says he has been working on his play, A 20th-Century Shirt, for most of his life, but now he needs Henry’s help to describe his characters: the play’s protagonists are a stuffed donkey and a howler monkey named Beatrice and Virgil, respectively, and Henry’s successful book was in part about animals. And though his new acquaintance is austere, abrupt and almost unearthly, Henry the writer is drawn more and more deeply into Henry the taxidermist’s uncompromising world. Beatrice & Virgil gradually grows into something more, a shattering and ultimately transfixing work that asks searching questions about the nature of our understanding of history, the meaning of suffering and the value of art. As we are drawn deeper into their disturbing moral fable, the relationship between the two faltering writers named Henry becomes more and more complex until it can only be resolved in an explosive, unexpected catastrophe.

“I know you’re very busy, Mr. Harper. We’re all busy. But every person has a space next to where they sleep, whether a patch of pavement or a fine bedside table. In that space, at night, a book can glow. And in those moments of docile wakefulness, when we begin to let go of the day, then is the perfect time to pick up a book and be someone else, somewhere else, for a few minutes, a few pages, before we fall asleep.” From the author of Life of Pi comes a literary correspondence—recommendations to Canada’s Prime Minister of great short books that will inspire and delight book lovers and book club readers across our nation. Every two weeks since April 16th, 2007, Yann Martel has mailed Stephen Harper a book along with a letter. These insightful, provocative letters detailing what he hopes the Prime Minister may take from the books—by such writers as Jane Austen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Stephen Galloway—are collected here together. The one-sided correspondence (Mr. Harper’s office has only replied once) becomes a meditation on reading and writing and the necessity to allow ourselves to expand stillness in our lives, even if we’re not head of government.

"Plusieurs connaissent la raison qui a motivé Yann Martel à envoyer, le lundi matin de chaque quinzaine, un livre à Stephen Harper, Premier ministre du Canada : le 28 mars 2007, à 15 heures, cinquante artistes, dont Yann Martel, étaient présents pour marquer le cinquantième anniversaire de la création du Conseil des Arts du Canada. Un événement qui aurait dû être historique, mais qui s'est révélé d'une insignifiance totale, la ministre Bev Oda s'étant contentée de souligner brièvement la date anniversaire, après quoi les députés sont passés à autre chose. Ni vu ni connu! Dans la lettre envoyée au Globe and Mail, le samedi 14 avril 2007, Yann Martel écrit à propos de cet anniversaire: "Le Premier ministre n'a pas dit un mot au cours de notre bref hommage, bien sûr que non. Je crois qu'il n'a même pas levé les yeux vers nous. La joute défense-attaque de la période des questions s'étant à peine terminée, il brassait ses papiers."Aucun doute que d'être Premier ministre accapare toute son attention et mousse à son comble son sens de l'importance de son activité. Aucun doute qu'il a l'air et qu'il gouverne comme quelqu'un qui se préoccupe peu ou prou des arts."Mais il doit bien avoir des moments de quiétude. Alors voici ce que je propose : non pas de l'instruire, ce serait arrogant, mais moins que ça, de faire des suggestions à sa quiétude." Voici donc soixante lettres (accompagnées d'un ou de livres) envoyées au Premier ministre du Canada, lettres traduites par Nicole et Émile Martel. "--Résumé de l'éditeur.

Pi Patel, having spent an idyllic childhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper, sets off with his family at the age of sixteen to start anew in Canada, but his life takes a marvelous turn when their ship sinks in the Pacific, leaving him adrift on a raft with a 450-pound Bengal tiger for company.

Piscine Molitor Patel, dit Pi, est fils du directeur du zoo de Pondichéry. Lorsque son père décide de quitter l'Inde, la famille liquide ses affaires et embarque, accompagné d'une étonnante ménagerie, sur un cargo japonais : direction le Canada. Le navire fait naufrage, et Pi se retrouve seul survivant à bord d'un canot de sauvetage. Seul, ou presque... Richard Parker, splendide tigre du Bengale, est aussi du voyage. Comment survit-on pendant 227 jours en tête à tête avec un fauve de trois cents kilos ?

Here are four unforgettable stories by the author of Life of Pi. In the exquisite title novella, a very young man dying of AIDS joins his friend in fashioning a story of the Roccamatio family of Helsinki, set against the yearly march of the twentieth century whose horrors and miracles their story echoes. In "The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American composer John Morton," a Canadian university student visits Washington, D.C., and experiences the Vietnam War and its aftermath through an intense musical encounter. In "Manners of Dying," variations of a warden's letter to the mother of a son he has just executed reveal how each life is contained in its end. The final story, "The Challenges of Science," chronicles how when fantasy and reality meet, even one of the great minds of science is confounded.