Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Obreht, the youngest of "The New Yorker's" 20 best American fiction writers under 40, spins a timeless novel about a young doctor who confronts the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather's recent death. 368 pp.

Reviews

"Stunning . . . a richly textured and searing novel."--Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times"
"Spectacular . . . [Tea Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop. [Grade: ] A"--"Entertainment Weekly"
"[Obreht] has a talent for subtle plotting that eludes most writers twice her age, and her descriptive powers suggest a kind of channeled genius. . . . No novel [this year] has been more satisfying."--"The Wall Street Journal"
"Filled with astonishing immediacy and presence, fleshed out with detail that seems firsthand, "The Tiger's Wife "is all the more remarkable for being the product not of observation but of imagination."--"The New York Times Book Review"
"That "The Tiger's Wife" never slips entirely into magical realism is part of its magic. . . . Its graceful commingling of contemporary realism and village legend seems even more absorbing."--"The Washington Post"
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"So rich with themes of love, legends and mortality that every novel that comes after it this year is in peril of falling short in comparison with its uncanny beauty."--"Time"

"Mesmerizing . . . [Tea] Obreht's striking ability to explain the world through stories is matched by her patience with the parts of life--and death--that endlessly confound us."--"The Boston Globe"
"Makes for a thrilling beginning to what will certainly be a great literary career."--"Elle"
"A compelling, persuasive writer, Obreht brings improbable elements to life on the page. Better, she makes them snap together with such magical skill that even the skeptical reader believes."--"Chicago Sun-Times"
"In Obreht's expert hands, the novel's mythology, while rooted in a foreign world, comes to be somehow familiar, like the dark fairy tales of our own youth, the kind that spooked us into reading them again and again."--"O: The Oprah Magazine"
"Obreht writes with an angel's pen .i

A tiger that's fled the zoo during World War II and the "deathless man" who collects the souls of the departed: two tales told to young medic Natalia by her grandfather that frame this bold, imaginative debut, effectively capturing the fearfulness that precipitated the recent fighting in the author's native Balkans. Obreht's storytelling is complex, humbling, and sheer magic. (LJ 1/11) (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In a war-torn Balkan country, a young doctor remembers her grandfather and tells a series of interlinked tales both historical and magical featuring the tiger's wife and the deathless man. In this account of love, loss, and war in the modern world, Obreht's vivid writing creates unforgettable visions of unique settings. (Mar.) (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.