Yann Martel: Beatrice and Virgil

Neither of you is well after the long trip with no food or water.

Together, you are taken to the "infirmary" by a soldier.

The place turns out to be a pit where people are being "cured with a single pill," as the soldier puts it, that is, with a single shot to the back of the head.

The pit is full of bodies, some of them still moving.

There are six people ahead of you in the line.

Your granddaughter looks up at you and asks you a question.

What is that question?

An armed guard tells you to sing. You sing.

He tells you to dance. You dance.

He tells you to pretend you are a pig.

You pretend you are a pig.

He tells you to lick his boot. You lick his boot.

Then he tells you to "____________________," and it's a foreign word you don't understand.

What action do you do?

The order comes at gunpoint: you and your family and all the people around you must strip naked.

You are with your seventy-two-year-old father, your sixty-eight-year-old mother, your spouse, your sister, a cousin, and your three children, aged fifteen, twelve and eight.

After you have finished undressing, where do you look?

You are about to die.

Next to you is a stranger. He turns to you.

He says something in a language you don't understand.

What do you do?

Your daughter is clearly dead.

If you step on her head, you can reach higher, where the air is better.

Do you step on your daughter's head?

Afterwards, when it's all over, you are sad.

Your sadness is all-consuming and ever-present.

You want to escape it.

What do you do?

Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God.

What do you say to God?

Afterwards, when it's all over, you overhear a joke.

At the punch line the listeners gasp, bringing their hands to their mouths, and then they roar with laughter.

The joke is about your suffering and your loss.

What is your reaction?

Of your community of 1,650 souls, 122 have survived. You hear that your entire extended family is dead, that your house has been taken over by strangers, that all your possessions have been stolen.

You also hear that the new government wants to turn a new page and address the errors of the past.

Do you return home?

A doctor is speaking to you:

"This pill will erase your memory.

You will forget all your suffering and all your loss.

But you will also forget your entire past."

Do you swallow the pill?

Born in Spain in 1963, Yann Martel studied philosophy at Trent University, worked at odd jobs-tree planter, dishwasher, security guard-and traveled widely before turning to writing. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed novel Life of Pi, which won the 2002 Man Booker Prize, was translated into forty-one languages, and spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list. His collection of short stories, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios , and his first novel, Self , both received critical acclaim. He has also published a collection of letters to the prime minister of Canada, What Is Stephen Harper Reading? Yann Martel lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their son, Theo.

Yann Martel is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please visit [http://www.rhspeakers.com] www.rhspeakers.com or call 212-572-2013.