for WMUK 102.1 FM radio
Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate
Arts and More program
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| Yann Martel with his bestseller, Life of Pi |
Author Yann Martel is best known for his popular novel Life of Pi, about a boy who explores his spirituality while stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.
Martel will give a talk called “Healing Journeys: Crossing the Pacific, Dealing with Trauma” as part of the Western Michigan University’s healing arts speaker series Thursday, October 23, at 7 p.m. at Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The event is free.
Finding Answers Through Storytelling
Martel says stories can give meaning to our lives. He says stories have a defined beginning, middle, and end, while our day to day lives tend aren’t as linear and can even be a little boring.
“What storytelling has the capacity to do is select out of the randomness of life key elements that do give meaning,” says Martel.
Understanding Religion
Martel says he wrote Life of Pi in an attempt to understand why people have faith. Martel says in his early 30s, he did not see religion as logical and often criticized organized religions for practicing intolerance. But when he went to India, things changed. While examining Hinduism—a religion he did not know much about—he saw religion in a different light.
“I suddenly realized those things that we hate about religion is only part of the story,” Martel says. “Not every person who’s religious is out to put women in the kitchen, put down Jews and gays, etc.”
Martel says writing Life of Pi did give him faith, but didn’t necessarily bring him to ...
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