Winning Booker like winning Lottery, says author
Booker Prize winner Yann Martel today described his win as “like winning the lottery”.
The Canadian author beat five other writers to the prestigious £50,000 (€79,100) Man Booker award which was announced at a dinner held in the Great Court of the British Museum in London last night.
His book, Life of Pi, tells the extraordinary story of a 16-year-old boy called Pi whose father runs a zoo in southern India.
The family decides to emigrate to Canada, taking an assortment of zoo animals with them. But their ship sinks and Pi finds himself cast adrift on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and a Bengal tiger.
Soon only Pi and the tiger are left and the book charts their struggle for survival alone in the Pacific Ocean.
Martel said he had interest from Hollywood in turning Life of Pi into a film and said he thought it would make a good animated feature.
Afterwards Martel said he felt “thrilled, ecstatic and exhilarated” to have won the prize.
“I’m absolutely delighted – this is a writer’s dream,” he said.
“There’s no more prestigious prize than the Booker and it feels like winning the lottery.”
Martel spent four years writing Life of Pi and described it as “a joy to write from start to finish”.
Asked about the internet bungle which saw him named as the winner a week before today’s announcement, he said: “I found out about that after the fact.
My publisher said if you hear people telling you you’ve won the Booker, it’s not true.
“But now I take it as an omen. I just pity the bookmakers.”
Bookmakers were counting the cost of Martel’s win, with the internet “leak” making him the hottest favourite in the history of the Booker.
Prior to that, Martel had only been fourth favourite with William Hill at odds of 5-1.
Spokesman Graham Sharpe said: “Punters got a bit of fortuitous guidance and Life of Pi was very heavily backed as a result.
“Martel was fourth favourite and had barely been touched in the betting until that point. This is one of the worst results that we could have had.
Chairwoman of the judging panel, Professor Lisa Jardine, said that the vote was eventually unanimous, with four judges choosing Martel and the fifth, comedian David Baddiel, being persuaded to join them.
“The final discussion was whole-hearted and unanimous. All six books had strong support but at the last stage four judges were absolutely sure and one came on board wholeheartedly,” she said. She added: “This is a totally wonderful book and if you haven’t read it, you’d better.”
Baddiel revealed he had favoured the Sarah Waters book, Fingersmith.
He said: “At first I did want to pick Fingersmith, but in the end the other judges made me reconsider and I came into the fold and I was happy for Life Of Pi to win.
“It is an unusual winner of the Booker, it is very bold and extreme with a wonderful central idea.”
The other contenders for the Booker were Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry, Unless by Carol Shields, The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and Dirt Music by Tim Winton.
The award was renamed the Man Booker Prize this year after its sponsors, city firm The Man Group.
