I start work by playing computer games and answering my e-mails. How I work depends on the stage I'm at with a book. If I've done the research, it's a matter of sitting down and getting on with it. Once I've written a few sentences, I'll make a herbal tea and probably decide I don't like what I've typed and change it.

I can spend a whole day doing that! I may end up writing half a page during one day. I don't think I've written a whole page in my life. Why rush?

I took four years to write Life of Pi because I really enjoyed telling the story. I work in my study, which is very minimal. There's a small Ikea typing table, a notepad computer, Webster's dictionaries and a small crucifix left to me by my grandmother. I have few possessions, partly because they weigh you down in life and partly because I'm used to a nomadic lifestyle. My parents were diplomats, so we always lived in different places. I was born in Spain, then at three days old moved to Portugal, then Alaska, Ottawa, Victoria, Costa Rica and Paris.

It's probably why I've never owned a house. I rent with flatmates in this huge, ramshackle apartment. It's not an unusual thing to do here and I like the companionship. I've never been interested in money, so owning something has never been a priority. Just as well, really - two years ago, I only made about £3,000. Luckily, I can live on very little. I don't even have a TV or a proper music player. Even after I won the Booker [£21,000], all I bought were Latin American and African CDs to play on my computer.

I listen to music while I'm eating lunch. I usually have a boil-in-the-bag microwave meal from a local veggie shop. Food doesn't interest me, though I eat properly to be healthy. But in the West we eat much more than we need. I drink lots of water, but have never touched alcohol. I find getting drunk disgraceful; it's fine for a special occasion - but always on a Saturday night? That's profoundly sad. There are things in life that elevate you, such as relationships, art and travel, but alcohol and drugs degrade you. God, I sound censorious, but they really do.

When I went to India six years ago, I had an incipient sense of crisis. I'd gone there to write my third book but it wasn't working out. I was 34, I'd published two books but they'd sold less than 2,000 copies each and I felt I had nothing to show for myself. It was then that I remembered the gist of a Brazilian story about a religious boy in a lifeboat with an animal. It was like a metaphor for life: on one hand it was about how we're all rooted in our animal conditions - we eat, excrete and reproduce - and on the other it was about how religion is something that takes us beyond ourselves.

It was then that I spent a lot of time in zoos in south India, and began reading the Bible, the Koran, the Gita and the Upanishad. I came round to agreeing with Gandhi that 'all religions are true'. Though I'd grown up in a nonreligious family, I did a 180-degree turn when researching Pi. Now I go to church every week. The book I'm working on at present is about Jews during the Holocaust. To research it I found myself in Auschwitz on New Year's Day. It was an extraordinary experience, wandering around alone in -15 degrees. And it makes you think even more about the human condition.

In the afternoon I'll work if I feel like it, or go to a yoga class. A while back, I did it every day. I like being in my body. It's a book we borrow temporarily, so we should use it while we have it. It's about facing up to your own mortality, knowing we're here for a short time, making the most of it.

In the evenings I'll meet friends - writing is an isolating experience and I'm not very social by nature, so I make an effort to go out, maybe see some contemporary dance or a film.

I love everything from art-house to the latest James Bond. Because I'm single I mainly eat out, at the same kind of vegetarian places where I get my lunch. I'll go home and shower - I love standing beneath hot water - before crawling into bed.

I never have problems falling asleep; I have a good life and parents who love me. I'd consider myself a failure if, one day, I didn't have children; books aren't a substitute for kids. I love writing, but at the end of the day your family and children are the reasons why you live."