The Booker is much to blame. Yann Martel was almost entirely unknown as a writer when, in 2002, he won the prize for Life of Pi, the story of an Indian boy castaway in a boat for 227 days with a big Bengal tiger for company, an allegory of the hazardous odyssey of the soul.
Shortly after his victory, Martel said: “I feel like Jesus Christ after he’s done his three days in Hell, I feel like a boy who has just discovered the joys of self-abuse, I feel like Sir Edmund Hillary after he’s stumbled to the top of Everest, all three joys all at once.” Justifiably, perhaps. For Life of Pi went on to sell 15 million copies in 50 languages and to be filmed in 3D by Ang Lee — the movie took $609 million at the box office. No other author’s fortunes have been so transformed by a prize.
