A candid chat with Life of Pi author at Sharjah book fair

sharjah — The setting of a novel leads me more than its characters, said Man Booker Prize-winning author of Life of Pi, Yann Martel, a novelist adept at accomplishing the unthinkable through his writings.

In an exclusive interview with Khaleej Times during the 39th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), the Canadian writer pointed out that a strong setting is almost like a character in its own right.

The 57-year-old author said the actual process of writing wrapped in “mystery of not knowing the end” is akin to “building something without being told what it is”.

“I can’t see how I can write a story that will have a beginning, without knowing its end. When I write a book, I think of the overall structure, the story in general and then how the characters react to that,” he added.

“Life of Pi, for example, was primarily about a shipwreck, the character was religious, stuck with a wild animal,” he explained.

Elucidating on spirituality that is often reflected in his works, Martel said: “It is an essential element of life. We are not mere computers that require data. We need to dream and go beyond our eyes and see spirituality and faith. I don’t mean religious faith. Faith, to me, is the key mechanism of life. To believe in things we have no proof of, would make us dream and that is essential. Just as reading a novel demands effort, so does spirituality.”

Martel’s discovery of faith has been wound up with his love for travelling. “Travel has awakened me in many ways. It’s hard to be complacent especially when you are in India,” said the writer who has witnessed the burning of dead bodies at the ghats of Varanasi, India.

Drawing analogies specifically between the UAE and India, Martel said: “These countries are extraordinarily diverse. Language, music, styles, religion — it’s all there, like a microcosm of the world.”

Martel’s upcoming novel, Son of Nobody, is in its final stages of completion. “It is a fragmentary novel inspired by Homer’s Iliad, offering a different perspective of the Trojan War that happened 3,000 years ago and changed western thinking. It’s from the perspective of a commoner. The novel is about a scholar who unexpectedly finds the lost Trojan war tradition. He then begins to reconstruct the time period and offers an alternative perspective of the epic war.”

The novel’s pages, Martel said, will be divided in half, in verse and in footnotes. “The top part with “lost fragments” will be written in a way that alludes to Homer’s dactylic hexameter, whereas the bottom half will be the scholar’s commentary on the fragments but will also tell their own story. In terms of its format, it’s quite interesting. The book might come out in the Spring of 2022.”

He lives with his novels for a long time, three years in this case, “I cannot work on multiple books at the same time. I live with my book and research it well and that leads to newer ideas. However, the ‘gaze remains steady’.

Meanwhile, a new idea already vying his attention. “I have, for a number of years, had this idea of writing a story of a centaur —a Greek mythological creature that is half human and half horse. So, there’s a teenage centaur that plays the guitar and loves Elvis Presley songs.”

The multilingual author, who is skilled at English, Spanish and French, said: “Whatever language I am writing in, that’s what I am thinking in. I am happy writing in English — it’s a powerful, versatile language spoken all over the world. I feel it has the infinite palette of a million colours.

“But having said that, once I start writing, I am just writing… I forget if I am a man, a Canadian or writing in a certain language. All I know is, I am creating something pure and that’s thrilling,” concluded Martel.

Once I start writing, I am just writing… I forget if I am a man, a Canadian or writing in a certain language. All I know is, I am creating something pure and that’s thrilling.”

Yann Martel,

Man Booker Prize-winning writer and author of Life of Pi