Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the #1 international bestseller and winner of the 2002 Man Booker (among other prizes). He is also the award-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (winner of the Journey Prize), Self, Beatrice & Virgil, and 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. Born in Spain in 1963, Martel studied philosophy at Trent University, worked at odd jobs—tree planter, dishwasher, security guard—and traveled widely before turning to writing. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.

YANN MARTEL

Because, after all, the Trojan War is a mythical war. It's a fragment that has been painted upon by generations of artists. It is fictional. It's a profoundly fictional work that has formed the Greek people, just as the Gospels are works of fiction. We have no historical accounts of Jesus. We only have artistic accounts, metaphorical accounts–the Gospels. Jesus is not a historical figure. There is nothing written directly about him. It's interesting to me that the West has been shaped by two works of fiction, The Iliad and The Odyssey and the Gospels, which are prehistoric artistic works. The West has two feet. They're both fictional feet, and after that we started being rational and reasonable.

❧

Papyrus is crumply and takes space and so [at Oxyrhynchus] they had just thrown out stuff. And what they had thrown out were some poems of Sappho, the apocryphal gospels of Jesus, the Gospel According to Thomas. A fake, if you want, gospel. The papyrus was just thrown out. A real treasure trove of fragments. So in my novel, I will say that some of these fragments come from there. Also, the Mycenaeans used what's called Linear B to write. And Linear B was strictly used for commercial purposes within the palaces at the time. It was never used for literary purposes. Well, I'll posit I have a scribe who listens to a bard, very early on, telling tales of Troy. He’s so moved by it, he'll try to write down some things using Linear B, which is a very limited form of writing. I'll claim that we discovered these tablets, so I may create these little fragments from the past. After all, there were many traditions told of the Trojan War, mainly oral. Many have been lost. Some exist in fragments. We know Helen was stolen from Sparta by Paris and brought to Troy. Well, some traditions said they didn't go straight to Troy. That in fact they actually went to Syria. They went somewhere else and were kept there for a while before coming back. There's fragments of the story that I guess were felt to go nowhere and therefore were not preserved in The Iliad but were preserved in some of the other epics and others were entirely lost. So I'm going to posit said other ideas about it.

Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Breaker, Castbox, TuneIn, Overcast, RadioPublic, Podtail, and Listen Notes, among others.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Daniel Soroudi. Digital Media Coordinator is Hannah Story Brown. 

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.