Yann Martel

And so that idea, and I said, usually there's a lot of a question maybe.

You're curious about something and it comes up.

Like the Holocaust.

I've always been interested in the Holocaust.

I'm not Jewish.

I'm not of Eastern European descent.

And my parents have been, my family have been for 300 years in Quebec.

So we have a very distant relationship factually to the Holocaust.

But it's always...

intrigued me as a human monstrous tragedy especially how do you represent it what does the artist do at the gates of auschwitz um then i start doing research so i read about i've always read about the holocaust but i remember the beach's version i just read the victor klemperer diaries this man who survived the whole holocaust in germany because his wife was a gentile and he pretended to be one and he write a daily journal about living under the nazis

So I read that.

And so it starts with a question, curiosity, research, which give me more ideas, more avenues of research.

And I'm writing tons of notes.

So Life of Pi, like 400 pages of random notes that I cut up, printed up, cut up, put in envelopes.

So it's very analog system.

Envelopes, depending where they fit in the novel.

And those would be like the bones of my story.

And I'd open up the first envelope and that would be the elements to make the story.

So it's like that.

It's a very organic, slow process.