Post-literate

Yann Martel has compiled his letters to Stephen Harper in a book.

"I suspect we have with Harper - and maybe he’s not the first, but it’s the first time I’ve noticed - I think we have someone who in a sense is post-literate," Martel, who won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002 for "Life of Pi," said in a recent interview.

"Of course he can read, of course he’s read books, of course he’s able to absorb a lot of information and he’s very intelligent.

"But I suspect in the making of the man, literary culture - so in other words, what novels, short stories, poems can bring to a person - that aspect hasn’t been very important so that’s what I mean by he’s post-literate."