Bookmakers’ favourite keeps his date with Booker

Martel had been viewed as the bookmakers favourite for his fiction. It is the story of Pi, an unusual boy brought up on a zoo in India.

Pi’s father decides to move the family to Canada, but when the ship taking them across the Pacific sinks Pi find himself on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker. Somehow he must survive.

But Martel feared the worst when he was told of an embarrassing slip-up last week. The official website prematurely — and mistakenly — named him as the winner. The book-makers William Hill suspended betting on the prize because of a huge increase in bets. In fact, it was one of six press releases that had been prepared and the winner was not chosen until last night.

After a heated 70-minute session last night, the judge picked Martel’s Life of Pi out of the six short-listed works. The others which failed to make the grade are Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry, now a Canadian citizen, Unless by Carol Shields, the Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, and Dirt music by Tim Winton.

Irish author William Trevor had been second favourite to win the title with William Hill giving odds of 2-1. Sarah Waters, currently enjoying fame following the television adaptation of her lesbian costume drama Tipping the Velvet, had been tipped as third favourite at 4-1.

The judges voted four to one for Life of Pi, published by the Edinburg-based publisher Canongate. Martel, the third Canadian to win, after Michael Ondaatje in 1992 and Margaret Atwood in 2000, divides his time between writing, yoga and volunteer work at a care unit. After a dinner in the British museum’s great court, the chairman of the judges, the writer and critic Lisa Jardine, said: ‘‘We have chosen an audacious book in which inventiveness explores belief. It is, as the author says, ‘a novel which will make you believe in god’ — or ask yourself why you don’t’’.

Martel thanked his family in French and praised readers in English for ‘‘having met his imagination halfway’’. Modestly, he said ‘‘of the six fine books on the shortlist, mine was the luckiest.’’

The Booker Prize was set up in 1969 ‘‘to reward merit, raise the stature of the author in the eyes of the public, encourage an interest in contemporary quality fiction and increase sales of the books.’’ (LATWP)