Yann Martel educated at Trent University
Early life
Martel was born in Salamanca, Spain, in 1963 to French-Canadians Émile Martel and Nicole Perron who were studying at the University of Salamanca. His mother was enrolled in Hispanic studies while his father was working on a PhD on Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno. The family moved to Coimbra, Portugal, soon after his birth, then to Madrid, Spain, then to Fairbanks, Alaska, and finally to Victoria, British Columbia; his father taught at the Universities of Alaska and Victoria. His parents joined the Canadian foreign service, and he was raised in San José, Costa Rica, Paris, France, and Madrid, Spain, with stints in Ottawa, Ontario, in between postings. Martel completed his final two years of high school at Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, and he completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.Martel worked at odd jobs as an adult, including as a parking lot attendant in Ottawa, a dishwasher in a tree-planting camp in northern Ontario, and a security guard at the Canadian embassy in Paris. He also travelled through Mexico, South America, Iran, Turkey, and India. He started writing while he was at university, writing plays and short stories that were "blighted by immaturity and dreadful", as he describes them.Martel moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with Kuipers in 2003.
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