A tiger stalks Yann Martel everywhere he goes. It's a beast of his own making, the orange Bengal that stares out from the front cover of his wildly successful novel, Life of Pi.
Martel shrugs when asked whether his latest work has been affected by the pressure of his recent success, which has included the Man Booker Prize and being shortlisted for the Governor-General's Literary Award.
"No, because you know what? You get used to anything," he said. "You can get used to living in a concentration camp and you can get used to seeing your book at airports."
But he's got concentration camps on his mind as he tries to write his fourth novel, an allegory for the Holocaust about a monkey and a donkey who wander through a magical world afflicted by horrors. He started the project in October, 2002, he said, and it's been progressing very slowly since he won the Booker.
"All hell broke loose, and I haven't written anything in 18 months."
read more on Yann Martel's Life after Pi :-)