Beatrice & Virgil

Awards & Recognition

  • A New York Times Bestseller

  • A Washington Post Bestseller

  • A Boston Globe Bestseller

  • An L.A. Times Bestseller

  • A Minneapolis Star Tribune Bestseller

  • A Sydney Morning Herald Bestseller

  • National #1 Bestseller in The Globe &  Mail 

  • National #1 Bestseller in Maclean’s 

  • #1 Bestseller in The Toronto Star   

  • Longlisted for The 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

  • Financial Times 2010 Fiction of the Year

  • Chosen for May 2010 Indie Next List

Rights Sold

Azerbaijani: Alatoran Literature Magazine

Brazil: Nova Fronteira / Ediouro

Canada: Knopf / Random House

Catalan: Columna

China (Complex): Business Weekly

China (Simplified): Yilin Press

China (Simplified): Xiron

Croatia: Profil

Czech: Argo

Denmark: The People’s Press 

Finland: Minerva

France: Flammarion

Germany: Fischer

Greece: Psichogios

Holland: Prometheus

Hungary: Cartaphilus Kaido

India: Penguin

Indonesia: Ufuk Press

Israel: Modan

Italy: Piemme

Korea: Jakkajungsin

Macedonia: TRI Publishing Centar

North America French: Les Editions XYZ

Norway: Cappelen Damm

Poland: Albatros

Poland: Albatros (Audio)

Portugal: Presenca

Russia: Exmo

Serbia: Geopoetika

Slovenia: Mladinska Knjiga Zalozba

Spain: Destino

Sweden: Brombergs

Thailand: Banlue

Turkey: Inkilap Kitabevi

UK & Comm: Canongate (Australia: Text)

US: Spiegel & Grau / Random House

Beatrice & Virgil

Critical Acclaim for

“Martel’s mesmerizing Man Booker Prize–winning Life of Pi (2002) has become a cult classic, its richness of depth and meaning belying the startling basic story line of a young Indian man stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for 227 days. So it is with Martel’s latest novel, also a fable-type story with iceberg-deep dimensions reaching far below the surface of its general premise. Henry, a young author, has written a book that has been successfully received, but the idea underpinning his follow-up work -- a combination of fiction and essays thematically linked by his concept that writers shy away from fictional depictions of the Holocaust in favor of strict documentation -- results in a manuscript deemed unacceptable by his publisher. Henry and his wife then flee their home country of Canada to live in “one of those great cities of the world,” which is never specified. One day Henry receives a packet of materials obviously sent by someone familiar with his once-celebrated status, and in tracking down the source of the packet, Henry encounters what will turn out to be a life-threatening acquaintance with a taxidermist, whose personality is as enigmatic as his stuffed creatures are haunting. Ultimately, Henry finds redemption in terms of his fiction writing but not before facing a leviathan-size example of the human capacity for inflicting cruelty, assuaging guilt, and engaging in creative deception.”

—Booklist (starred)

“Up until about page 117, Yann Martel's new novel, Beatrice and Virgil, appears teeth-grindingly precious. Then, click, you realize: Martel knows exactly what he's doing in this lean little allegory about a talking donkey and monkey. This novel just might be a masterpiece about the Holocaust…Martel brilliantly guides the reader from the too-sunny beginning into the terrifying darkness of the old man's shop and Europe's past. Everything comes into focus by the end, leaving the reader startled, astonished and moved.”

—Deirdre Donahue, USA Today

“Yann Martel's Life of Pi, a prize-winning best seller of 2003, was one of those rare books that worked equally well on two levels. It was a terrific yarn about a boy who shares a drifting lifeboat with a hungry tiger, but it also was a sophisticated, implicit argument about the "truth" of fiction. As Pi's boat drifts across the Pacific, the improbabilities of the story mount, but the reader's skepticism never gets the upper hand. At the end, when a rational account of the same events is offered, the reader's mind resists it; the yarn, however improbable, feels truer. In the opening pages of Beatrice and Virgil, Martel's brilliant new novel, the narrator explains why this is so. By making animals central characters in his book, an author can counteract the reader’s cynicism about his own species…This time, however, Martel plays for much higher stakes. The subject of Beatrice and Virgil is not just one boy's improbable adventure, but the very real horror of the Holocaust, and the difficulty of doing it justice in telling it. Martel works not at two levels, but several…As the book climbs toward its fiery climax, Martel draws tighter a dense net of allusions, parallels and oppositions…(t)o say more would be to spoil things. Be assured that with this short, crisply written, many-layered book, Martel has once again demonstrated that nothing tells the truth like fiction.”

—Jean Dubail, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“If Beatrice and Virgil were a piece of music, it would be an extended fugue, beginning so quietly as to be almost inaudible, and culminating in a moment of overwhelming noise followed by silence…Evoking the teasing style of Italian authors such as Italo Calvino or Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Martel leads his reader on a chase through a house of mirrors…There is indeed no exit from Beatrice and Virgil, not even when the book culminates in its final moment of overwhelming crescendo, as Martel’s characters find themselves trapped in an eruption of hell-like flames. Like the echoing themes of a fugue, all the components of Martel’s novel fit tightly together, leading up to one ultimate moment of terror.”

—The Harvard Crimson

“(A) complex and nuanced book…While Life of Pi blurred and complicated the divisions between fact and fiction, Beatrice and Virgil offers an even deeper exploration of what’s “real” and what’s not…(and) ingeniously ruptures the division between worlds real and imagined, forcing us to reconsider how we think of documentary writing. Forget what this book is “about”; Yann Martel's new novel not only opens us to the emotional and psychological truths of fiction, but also provides keys to open its fictions ourselves, and to become, in some way, active participants in their creation.”

—Pasha Malla, The Globe & Mail

“Imaginative and innovative novel about the Holocaust, including taxidermists, talking donkeys and the best ever description of a pear. It’s weird, wonderful and impressively short.” 

 —The Financial Times

  • “…audaciously original, never less than engrossing, often disturbing, and in its denouement truly horrifying.”

    —The Telegraph

  • “..astonishing and quite moving….”

    —Edmonton Journal 

  • “Somewhere between Beckett and Ionesco…with its textures of genre and allegory, there also comes an explosion of ideas that keep the pages turning…a wild, provocative novel.”

     —The Independent on Sunday

“… a slim but potent exploration of the nature of survival in the face of evil…Beatrice and Virgil is a chilling addition to the literature about the horrors most of us cannot imagine, and will stir its readers to think about the depths of depravity to which humanity can sink and the amplitude of our capacity to survive.”

—Nina Sankovitch, The Huffington Post 

“It is awe-inspiring when a writer hits a high note; goes dancing along the edge of something; hurls himself against enormous questions again and again....Writers such as Martel are a kind of human sacrifice. It cannot be easy to imagine a way into suffering, come out, lead others into and through it.” 

—Los Angeles Times 

“[Beatrice and Virgil] is a difficult, uneasy, but ultimately rewarding read; a brave concept novel. One that deserves careful tasting. It’s something you’ll chew over for weeks, months in advance. And in this, in the delivery of a novel that makes fresh those terrible events, Martel’s art does achieve something. It achieves some measure of truth.” 

—A. J. Kirby, NYJournalofBooks.com 

“A sophisticated fable... It might be best described as an artful philosophical novella rather in the spirit of the slim volumes produced by writers of the French Enlightenment... Beatrice and Virgil is so imbued with passionate moral and intellectual ardor that even the cynical should find it engaging.”

—The Wall Street Journal 

“Beatrice and Virgil encourages a reflection on humanity. It is also a story about human cruelty. The author, in a kind of a wicked way, tells us about death, life, guilt and redemption, using a simple language, without introducing unnecessary philosophy behind the events. This story is an interesting attempt to find a new language to describe the Holocaust.”

—The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award longlist citation

“In spite of its odd manner – or perhaps because of it – Martel does indeed challenge us to reconsider the greatest crime of the 20th Century. By book’s end, readers are literally left with a series of morally demanding, if not heart-wrenching questions to reflect upon – all masterfully woven into the dual storylines.”

—The Halifax Herald

“Consistent with his habit of asking the very difficult questions about what it means to be human, Canadian author Yann Martel has just written one of the most moving books about the Holocaust to date. And before you decide not to read it because you already know that genocide is not nice and that we should never ever persecute and/or murder large groups of people based on their ethnicity or any other classification, bear with me for a moment while I explain why you must read this great book anyway. When I heard that anthropomorphized animals would factor heavily into Yann Martel's second novel, I began to worry that he was a bit of a one-trick-pony, having used this four-legged literary device in his wildly successful previous novel The Life of Pi. And when I heard that it was about the Holocaust I began to think I might want to do literally anything other than read what was apparently yet another in the depressing and seemingly endless literary cannon about the Jewish genocide.However, Beatrice and Virgil is a horse of a different color, the author burrowing ever more deeply into the rich soil of stories within stories within stories. ... Martel takes his reluctant readers down a reasonably pleasant track, as two creative characters work together on the lines and stage action of two optimistic and gentle talking animals, who discuss life and, oddly, food. Martel is a master of the slow reveal, and although we know from the outset that genocide is in the air, it just really doesn't seem like it from page to page, and chapter to chapter - in the same way that by the time the German Jews realized that there was a problem, they were already on the trains...The very idea that we think that we have heard the story enough is perhaps a sign that we have not. Perhaps if we retell these morphed stories of genocides past, again and again, in new and creative ways that inform our hearts of what it really means to fear and hate, perhaps then we can prevent the story from playing out once again upon the world stage. If you never read another book about animals or the Holocaust, read Yann Martel's Beatrice & Virgil. You will be glad that you did, and you may find yourself seeing your life and the world, both fictional and otherwise, in a different light.”

—About.com 

“…a one of a kind tale about identity and survival…Martel’s carefully constructed layers, peppered with references to culture, history, and literature, are sure to evoke much rumination…”

—Manila Bulletin

"Those spell-bound by Man Booker prize-winning Life of Pi will find much to love in Yann Martel’s new work of fiction… In Beatrice and Virgil, Martel again evokes the power of allegory, this time to address the legacy of the Holocaust—as well as the pleasure of fairy tales. At the heart of this novel are questions about truth and illusion, responsibility and innocence, and Martel is able to employ Beatrice and Virgil as sympathetic, nuanced vehicles for his vision. Beatrice and Virgil is a thought-provoking delight."

—Marie Claire

“Just as every painting is a response to the history, tradition and nature of art, every story is part of a larger conversation about storytelling. Yann Martel takes this conversation very seriously. It has been a major theme of his best known fiction, from his Journey Prize winning story The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios to his internationally bestselling, Booker Prize winning second novel, Life of Pi…Rich in allusions and references, what ensues is the literary equivalent of a Sudoku, boxes that need to be unpuzzled and connected to make sense; a novel, to a fable, to an allegory, to an essay, to a piece of absurdist theatre, to a diagram of arm gestures, to a disjointed list, to a morbid game…The search for a means to express our inhumanity, particularly as it relates to the Holocaust, is fraught with hazards…this is a novel that dances dangerously on the edge of a moral precipice, just as it takes literary chances. Martel is urging us to open our squeezed-shut eyes and look down…Whether the book succeeds will depend on how willing readers are to partake in an important conversation. Martel clearly has confidence that they will, and I hope he’s right, for all our sakes.” 

—The Montreal Gazette 

“Beatrice and Virgil is a page turner, engaging, propulsive, and quite easy to read. It injects the philosophical and artistic concerns of literary fiction into the frame and pacing of a book designed for broader audiences. Martel displays his keenest literary skill in the early part of the novel, flitting through the kinds of subjects that bookish nerds of a certain postmodernist bent tend to obsess over: the possibilities and challenges of writing in a particular language, the complexity of pseudonymous fame, the intellectual allure of the essay versus the power of fiction to narrativize higher truth…Beatrice and Virgil does a fantastic job of raising essential questions of post-postmodernity, exploring the porous boundaries between autobiography and fiction, history and myth, and the limits of allegory. Its rewards are not in its answers but in its questions. Recommended.”

—Biblioklept

"Martel's Life of Pi engaged readers with the predicament of a shipwrecked boy and tiger; his new fable is just as inventive, provocative, and artful--only this time the peril is genocide."

—Good Housekeeping 

 “An intriguing tale about a writer, a taxidermist, a donkey and a howler-monkey. And a shirt. It takes the Holocaust as its subject matter but in an original and provocative way, challenging the reader to examine his or her feelings towards representations of the Holocaust in fiction. As someone who has spent much of the last four and a half years discussing this very topic, I was hugely impressed by Beatrice & Virgil, by the brave stance that Martel takes and by his ability to move the reader in a most unusual fashion. It’s also a meditation on writing and how successful it can and cannot be when confronted with topics such as this. In the States, it appears that the book has divided critics but I find myself on the side of those who think this is an important and memorable novel, certainly (like the Philip Pullman book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ) worthy of discussion and debate, as all good literature should be.”

—John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

“A profound desire to cement a bond between animals and humans is the engine that drives Yann Martel's extraordinary new novel, Beatrice and Virgil.…provocative and brilliantly imagined.” 

—Seattle Times

“Has many wonders…Martel’s latest book does something extraordinary. It causes the reader to contemplate serious ideas, and to think. Beatrice and Virgil will haunt you long after the final page.” 

—BookPage

“Martel has a boundless imagination and an astonishing way with words, taking the novel where it has never been before…Beatrice and Virgil is a weird, brave, looping book that does not pull punches. I can't stop thinking about it. It remains to be seen if it too has what it takes to become the darling of book groups around the world. If it does, then Martel's achievement will be even more remarkable than before, a sure sign that he has tapped into the depth of desire out there to grapple with the unspeakable horrors of our times.”

 —The Australian Literary Review 

“Once more Martel has lured us into slowly deepening horror. Once more we are stepping onto that raft with a tiger. Only this time it is something even more terrifying. In The Life of Pi we used our imagination – chances of us finding ourselves adrift in the middle of the ocean with a “natural enemy” are quite remote. In Beatrice and Virgil, Martel has tricked us into seeing things that are all around us but which we choose to close our eyes to. He has put them into a book that, by now, is impossible to put down. We learn why Virgil and Beatrice are all alone together, why they are frightened and why they are hungry. Remember, Martel is someone who can make you taste a pear off the words on a page. Imagine what his words can do for desperation, torture and extermination. Beatrice and Virgil is very different from The Life of Pi, but both works deserve a round of applause and a place of honour on the bookshelf.” 

—The Star (Malaysia)

“Forty-five pages into Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil, I had no idea what the author was doing…However, I was reminded, Martel had written Life of Pi – the 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning novel that sold a staggering 700,000 copies in Canada and about 7 million copies worldwide…So I kept Beatrice and Virgil, finished it - and was floored…I had to remind myself to exhale. Martel's writer-on-writer, fun-with-animals fiction had become an astonishing and heartbreaking masterwork for me, a flashpoint for discussion of memory, history, complacency and understanding.”

—The Telegram (St. John’s)

“Unlike Pi, an obscurity that sold poorly when first published in Canada, gaining sales only after winning the British prize a year later, Beatrice and Virgil is one of the most eagerly anticipated titles in Canadian history.”

—John Barber, The Globe & Mail 

“Beatrice and Virgil combines the horrific with the comic, the playful with the serious, and allegory with realism to produce a novel which succeeds where Henry himself failed in his own book; to merge fact and fiction in search of a greater truth.”

—Bookgeeks.co.uk

  • “Life of Pi fans have a new set of animals to fall for, this time a donkey and a monkey that don’t bite but may tear readers’ hearts out.”

    —Victoria Ahearn, Winnipeg Free Press 

  • “(A)stonishing…”

    —Eye Weekly 

  • “Martel’s central theme – the allegorical relationship of the Holocaust to the disaster humanity currently wreaking on the natural world – is brilliantly conceived…”

    —Maclean’s

“A follow-up every bit as satisfying as Life of Pi…Martel's readers will be rewarded with a flashing finale…Without giving too much away, the ending is as shocking as lightning on a sunny day. The goosebumps subside, but Beatrice and Virgil leaves an imprint after its cover is closed. The protagonist Henry may have failed to write a literary book about the Holocaust, but Yann Martel succeeds in spades.”

 —St. Louis Post Dispatch 

 “Yann Martel shows in his first novel since Life of Pi, not everything has yet been said about the Nazi experience…demonstrates that the resonance of what happened in Hitler’s era is not diminished by familiarity or time.” 

—Herald Scotland

“Beatrice & Virgil is initially as wry and engaging as anything Yann Martel has written, this book gradually grows into something more, a shattering and ultimately transfixing work that asks searching questions about the nature of our understanding of history, the meaning of suffering and the value of art. Together it is a pioneeringly original and profoundly moving accomplishment.” 

—McNallyRobinson.com

“…Beatrice and Virgil shocks readers with its depiction of goodness and decency defiled by brutality. More importantly, it demands that we, like poor Henry the novelist, devise new ways of memorializing history’s countless innocent victims.”

—Quill & Quire

“There's probably nothing harder to do than write about a subject which has not only been written to death, but which is also is some manner considered highly sacrosanct. Even more perplexing is when the subject is about the unspeakable horrors that humans have proven themselves capable of inflicting upon each other and the world. In today's world we are so inundated with images and information that the mere recounting of events has little or no effect on us. Hearing the same story over and over again, instead of increasing our disgust, deadens our emotional reaction and we are no longer able to take in the real implications of what's being described. Yann Martel brings that issue home with his new release, Beatrice and Virgil…What Martel has done with Beatrice and Virgil is give readers a multi-layered and highly textured read that at first seems somewhat obtuse and disjointed. For audiences used to being spoon-fed information in comfortable, digestible servings it might appear there are large gaps in the narrative. However, what he has done is both gradually build a picture of the obsessive nature of the artist in his character of Henry and find a new way of telling the story of the Holocaust…As we don't seem to be able to learn from history — ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and all the other ethnic violence that has occurred since the end of WW II makes that apparent — it becomes imperative some other way of getting the message across is found. Martel's book might not be the whole answer, but it's a positive step in the right direction.”

—Blogcritics.org

Praise from Booksellers

“…an allegorical masterpiece that mixes Aesop with Flaubert & Martel’s own sheer narrative genius.”

—North 49 Books enews, Pick of the Week

“Yann Martel's writing is haunting and brilliant.”

—Jennifer Davis, ASM at B&N Long Beach Marina

“Beatrice and Virgil has much to admire on several levels —philosophical resonance, literary prowess and a set of deeply memorable characters so vivid and haunting one cannot ever forget them. What a searing and powerful story. It keeps replaying itself over in my mind.”

—Sheryl Cotleur, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

“This novel is so haunting and provocative that I could not stop thinking of it for days.”

—Emily Crowe, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA

“I read Beatrice and Virgil in one sitting; I couldn't put it down. I think that this is going to have more appeal than Life of Pi, if that's even possible, and you know that that is still one of my favorites. Martel's new book is so lovingly nuanced and layered that it will be a page turner. It's hard to separate from the characters.”

—Esther Bushell, book club coordinator and founder of LiteraryMatters

Early Consumer Raves

“The early candidate for BEST BOOK OF 2010…Yann Martel, author of the timeless parable, LIFE OF PI, has written what will certainly be one of the best books of its year. The powerful ending punch will have you reconsider all that has gone before. You may love it as much as I do, but even if you do not, it will be a novel that has made you confront the horror we so often sublimate and try to escape. This is a novel to be reckoned with and remembered.”

“Like Life of Pi, this book was EXTREMELY WELL-WRITTEN AND DEVELOPED. The story line moved along well and kept me RIVETED to the end. It was HAUNTING.”

“INTENSELY INTERESTING AND READABLE with a powerful ending.”

“This novel is so haunting and provocative that I could not stop thinking of it for days.”

—Emily Crowe, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA

“FLOORED ME. Highly recommended.”

“Lots and lots of layers. I think I'll be thinking about it for quite some time. A GREAT SELECTION FOR BOOK CLUBS because I came away with so many questions.”

“It's been a long time since I read a book that left me with such an urgent need to have a conversation about it with other readers. DEFINITELY A GOOD BOOK CLUB PICK.

“INTENSELY INTERESTING AND READABLE with a powerful ending.”

“For those who read Life of Pi (and, obviously, loved it -- is there any other possible reaction?), THIS IS A MUST-READ AND WELL WORTH YOUR TIME.

“Both surprising and powerful, Martel’s latest will win awards and BECOME AN INSTANT CLASSIC. An ostensibly simple story with a few quirky characters, Beatrice and Virgil has real depth, rich symbolism and importance. Taken in its entirety, Beatrice and Virgil packs a punch and should leave the reader’s head spinning with reflection. A TRULY MOVING AND ENTIRELY READABLE BOOK, this would be great for high school students to tackle as a community read.”

 “I absolutely love the sweet, gentle flow of Martel's prose. It reminds me sometimes of E.B. White's work…THE CREATIVITY IS AMAZING. Martel uses all kinds of unconventional techniques to make the experience of reading his books fresh, unusual, and unique. One of the manifestations of this creativity is how he is able to take the reader through so many different emotional places.”

“Yann Martel tells a really good story. Beatrice and Virgil lacks the grand survivalist detail of Life of Pi, but makes up for it with a tight, well-paced story of a writer and a taxidermist collaborating on a play that involves a monkey and a mule. I loved this novel even with the final few pages that seem a bit random but really knocked me back a bit (similar feeling to the end of Life of Pi, but perhaps not as profound a conclusion).”

“This book explores the nature of storytelling and being a writer, similar to the last section of Life of Pi. If you found that part of the novel compelling, definitely pick this up. Martel is just a good, smart writer.”

“I love the way the scope of this book grows using simple tools and spare prose. Martel artfully explores the difficulties of his core themes without alienating the reader or going too far over her/his head. This is an impressive trick done expertly. Highly recommended”

“This was short and to the point and packed one big punch. Ultimately, this was a satisfying and thought-provoking read that worked on many levels.”

“If you enjoyed "Pi," or if you are ready for something completely different, try Beatrice and Virgil, and see if you can keep your senses open and aware to everything Martel has got going on in this very creative reading experience.

“Beatrice and Virgil is a quick, smart and often funny novel…overall a good literary read with a lot to think and chew on, including some delicious luminescent pears.”

“Read this book for the pear description scene alone. It's beautiful.”