Piscine Molitor Patel, otherwise known as Pi, lives in Pondicherry, India, where his father runs and owns the city's zoo. At the age of sixteen, his parents decide to emigrate to Canada, taking their larger family with them but tragedy strikes when the cargo ship sinks during a terrible storm. A solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the surface of the wild blue Pacific. In it are five survivors; Pi, a hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. With intelligence, daring and inexpressible fear, Pi manages to keep his wits about him as the animals begin to assert their places in the food-chain. And ultimately it is the tiger, Richard Parker, with whom Pi must develop an inviolable understanding. Yann Martel's Life of Pi is a transformative novel, an astonishing work of imagination that will delight and stun readers in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling and a tale that will, as one character puts it, make you believe in God. What more can any reader ask