The New York Timesreports that Life of Pi author Yann Martel signed a $3 million deal with Random House. Random House purchased the rights to publish Martel's third novel at an auction. Martel's next novel will be an allegory about the Holocaust.
"I've noticed over the years of reading books on the Holocaust and seeing movies that it's always represented in the same way, which is historical or social realism," Mr. Martel, 46, said in a telephone interview from his home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. "I was thinking that it was interesting that you don't have many imaginative takes on it like George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and its take on Stalinism."
Mr. Martel said that although there had been a few works - like "Life Is Beautiful" in film or the "Maus" books by Art Spiegelman - that had been more metaphorical, artists were generally "fearful of letting the imagination loose on the Holocaust."
"So my novel is an attempt to get a distillation on it," Mr. Martel said, "and see if there is a way of talking about the Holocaust without talking about it literally."
The Times article says Houghton Mifflin Harcourt also wanted the book and offered a seven-figure advance in early June but Martel and his agent were worried about the company's financial troubles. Martel says he thought the success of Life of Pi was a "freak" and that he isn't really feeling the pressure for his next book.
