Yann Martel

About Yann Martel: YANN MARTEL is the author of Life of Pi, the global bestseller that won the 2002 Man Booker Prize and was adapted to the screen in the Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada. About Son of Nobody: 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.

Why do ancient myths still hold the answers to our modern anxieties? When faced with inexplicable grief or the incomprehensible scale of modern war, where does rationality fail us? Can the stories of our past save our future? My guest today is Yann Martel , the internationally acclaimed author best known for his Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi and weaving philosophy, imagination, and profound human questions into unforgettable stories. His new novel, Son of Nobody , is a feat of literary imagination. Written in Homer-esque verses and layered with footnotes, the book draws us into the voice of a Greek storyteller while simultaneously mirroring our own present moment. It’s a work rich with history and intertextual echoes—ancient stories resurfacing in modern life, reminding us how deeply the past still speaks through us. At its heart, Son of Nobody is a meditation on life, death, grief, and the fragile ways our human vanity can cloud our search for meaning. Through myth, memory, and philosophical storytelling, Martel explores what it means to long for home, to wrestle with ambition, and to confront loss. It’s a deeply moving reflection on how ancient tales—told and retold across centuries—can still teach us compassion, humility, and perhaps the courage to recognize that we can be nobody and still matter. It’s a beautiful, sometimes haunting story about what we can learn from the past when it comes to homesickness, love, grief, and ambition—and about remembering to value what we have before the search for more blinds us to it. (0:00) Why is there human suffering? Why humanizing conflict is essential to understanding it (02:14) Introduction to Son of Nobody, Yann Martel’s latest mythic novel (04:20) The Limits of Rationality & Magical Thinking Why pure logic fails to answer life's deepest philosophical questions (09:48) Why Greek Myths Still Speak to Us The universal relevance of ancient stories (13:38) The Heroism of Translators (18:32) Facts vs. Truth in Storytelling How psychological and emotional truths surpass factual accuracy (21:23) Why War Needs Stories (24:38) Reflections on Iran and Modern Conflict (30:35) The Iliad vs. The Gospels (41:26) What Do You Do with the Sadness of Mortals? (45:52) How Life of Pi Changed Martel’s Faith (51:58) AI vs. Human Creativity Episode Website www.creativepr ocess.info/pod @creativeprocesspodcast

In his book “The High Mountains of Portugal,” Yann Martel writes... “Love is a house with many rooms, this room to feed the love, this one to entertain it, this one to clean it, this one to dress it, this one to allow it to rest, and each of these rooms can also just as well be the room for laughing or the room for listening or the room for telling one’s secrets or the room for sulking or the room for apologizing or the room for intimate togetherness, and, of course, there are the rooms for the new members of the household. Love is a house in which plumbing brings bubbly new emotions every morning, and sewers flush out disputes, and bright windows open up to admit the fresh air of renewed goodwill. Love is a house with an unshakable foundation and an indestructible roof.” In this episode, we’re bringing you a story about a house . A house that belong s to author Yann Martel and now houses newcomers . We e xplor e what it takes to sponsor a refugee family. How it takes a village. A community. A network of people working together, using their strengths. How anyone can get involved with the resources, time or skills they have to offer. We speak with Yann and a number of people connected to the home he gifted—a family member who was once a refugee herself, someone from the sponsorship group and a neighbour. Full transcript a

Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the #1 international bestseller and winner of the 2002 Man Booker (among other prizes). He is also the award-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (winner of the Journey Prize), Self, Beatrice & Virgil, and 101 Letters to a Prime Minister . Born in Spain in 1963, Martel studied philosophy at Trent University, worked at odd jobs—tree planter, dishwasher, security guard—and traveled widely before turning to writing. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada, with the writer Alice Kuipers* and their four children. · www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/19175/yann-martel/ · www.creativeprocess.info

Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the #1 international bestseller and winner of the 2002 Man Booker (among other prizes). He is also the award-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (winner of the Journey Prize), Self, Beatrice & Virgil, and 101 Letters to a Prime Minister . Born in Spain in 1963, Martel studied philosophy at Trent University, worked at odd jobs—tree planter, dishwasher, security guard—and traveled widely before turning to writing. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada, with the writer Alice Kuipers* and their four children. · www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/19175/yann-martel/ · www.creativeprocess.info

In which the Idiots continue the Summer Reading Season with Yann Martel's 2002 Man Booker Prize Winner - Chin insists that there's nothing wrong with his interactions with animals - one of the Idiots is outed as a "Yiffer" with a secret Deviantart account - work out how many times it is possible to have watched the film "Battlefield Earth" since its release on May 12 2000. Featuring Special Guest Experts Tom Redman, Sasha Ellen, and returning True Crime Mystery Podcaster/Freeloader Steve Koenig.

Novelist Yann Martel, author of the Booker prize-winning Life of Pi , joins us for a conversation about books, reading and the endless scope of art in making sense of the world. His latest novel The High Mountains of Portugal is out in paperback this month - a gorgeous story about loss, and the sometimes eccentric ways in which we deal with it. We also finds out about a very peculiar guerrilla book group, conducted once upon a time by Yann himself… Books mentioned in this episode: The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel Life of Pi by Yann Martel The old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway The Iliad by Homer, Transl. Stephen Mitchell The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories by Franz Kafka Music by The Bookshop Band

An in-depth interview with Yann Martel about his book The High Mountains of Portugal.

A mini-interview with Yann Martel about his book The High Mountains of Portugal.

Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the #1 international bestseller and winner of the 2002 Man Booker (among other prizes). He is also the award-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (winner of the Journey Prize), Self, Beatrice & Virgil, and 101 Letters to a Prime Minister . Born in Spain in 1963, Martel studied philosophy at Trent University, worked at odd jobs—tree planter, dishwasher, security guard—and traveled widely before turning to writing. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada, with the writer Alice Kuipers* and their four children. · www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/19175/yann-martel/ · www.creativeprocess.info