LONDON (AP) -- Canadian author Yann Martel won Britain's most prestigious literary award, the Man

LONDON (AP) -- Canadian author Yann Martel won Britain's most prestigious literary award, the Man Booker Prize, with his novel "Life of Pi."
A jubilant Martel punched the air in delight when his name was read out Oct. 22 during an evening ceremony at the British Museum in central London.
Martel, who edged out the five other finalists from Canada, Australia, Ireland and Wales in contention for the $77,500 literary award, thanked the judges "for deciding that of the six fine books on the shortlist, mine was the luckiest."
His novel tells the story of Pi -- short for Piscine -- an unusual boy raised in a zoo in India. Pi's father decides to move the family to live in Canada and sell the animals to the great zoos of America. The ship taking them across the Pacific sinks and Pi finds himself the sole human survivor on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker.
"I would like to thank readers for having met my imagination halfway," the Spanish-born Martel said.
Canadians dominated this year's award -- Martel was joined by Rohinton Mistry for "Family Matters" and Carol Shields for "Unless." But they faced strong competition from "Dirt Music," by Australia's Tim Winton; "The Story of Lucy Gault," by Ireland's William Trevor, one of the world's most celebrated writers; and "Fingersmith," by Sarah Waters of Wales.
The prize is bestowed annually on the best English-language novel by a writer from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth of former British colonies.
Backed by the Booker foods group, it was established in 1969 to reward good writing, to raise the stature of the author in the eyes of the public, and to encourage an interest in contemporary quality fiction. Financial services conglomerate Man Group PLC took over sponsorship in a five-year deal announced earlier this year and added "Man" to the prize's name.