Tiger Dream

The image of the boy in the boat with a tiger is based on a smaller etching I produced for an international competition to illustrate Yann Martel's book, The Life of Pi. Tiger Dream features a boy who tells three stories to dissuade a tiger from eating him. This image is from one story that is substantially different from Martel's telling, or the tale that inspired Martel to write his novel "Max and the Cats", by Moacyr Scliar about a Jaguar in a boat with a boy.

Left alone in an apartment for the first time, a young boy is visited by a talking tiger. "Tell me a good story," he demands of the boy. "Or I'll eat you." (The tiger has just eaten two children.) Each story the boy tells involves a boy and a tiger. The boy starts with Little Black Sambo, which the tiger hates, and then tries a story where the tiger is the hero. The final story depicts the tiger as a king, but each story told cleverly persuades the tiger to reflect on his nature, and the humanity of the boy he threatens to eat.

home