''The Tiger's Wife'' is the

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...

of American writer Téa Obreht. It was published in 2011 by

Weidenfeld & Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld ...

, a British imprint of

Orion Books Orion Publishing Group Ltd. is a UK-based book publisher. It was founded in 1991 and acquired Weidenfeld & Nicolson the following year. The group has published numerous bestselling books by notable authors including Ian Rankin, Michael Connell ...

, in the United Kingdom and by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

in the United States.Formats and Editions of Tiger's wife"

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

. Retrieved 12 April 2014. Set in mid 20th-century to early 21st-century

Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

, it explores inter-generational dynamics between members of a medical family, and how they were involved in several wars throughout the timeframe. Obreht won the 2011

Orange Prize for Fiction The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–2012), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017) is one of the United Kingdom's ...

for ''The Tiger's Wife,'' becoming the youngest winner of the prize to date, at age 25. The novel was finalist for the

National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987, the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, bu ...

and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Story

''The Tiger's Wife'' is set in an unnamed country in the

, spanning the mid 20th-century to the early 21st century. It features a young doctor's relationship with her grandfather and the stories he tells her. Her grandfather retells stories about the "deathless man" who meets him several times in different places and who doesn't die, regardless of the danger he faces; and a deaf-mute girl from his childhood village who befriends a tiger that has escaped from a nearby zoo.

Background

The novel was largely written while Obreht was attending

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

.Flanagan, Mark
"Tea Obreht"
''Contemporary Literature''. About.com. Retrieved 28 March 2011. Portions of the novel were excerpted in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' in June 2009. When Obreht was asked to summarize the story by a university journalist, she replied, "It's a family saga that takes place in a fictionalized province of the Balkans. It’s about a female narrator and her relationship to her grandfather, who's a doctor. It's a saga about doctors and their relationships to death throughout all these wars in the Balkans."Hamilton, Ted (25 March 2009)
"Student Artist Spotlight: Tea Bajraktarevic"
(interview). ''Cornell Daily Sun''. Archived 7 March 2012. Retrieved 12 April 2014.

Reception

On ''The Omnivore'', in an aggregation of British press reviews, the book received a score of 3.5 out of 5. In May/June 2011 issue of Bookmarks, the book received a (4.0 out of 5) based on critic reviews with a critical summary saying, "Authoritative, absorbing, and eloquent, The Tiger's Wife marks the emergence of an extraordinary new voice in fiction". ''The BookScore'' gave it an aggregated critic score of 8.6 based on an accumulation of British and American press reviews. ''Prosenotes'' gave it a "C" (70%) based on critic reviews with a consensus saying, "This debut author handles the material well with this beautifully-written work. The story is a bit shaky in places, and her writing can come off as overly-polished, but the writing and the handling of the subject matter overcome these flaws". According to

Book Marks ''Literary Hub'' or ''LitHub'' is a daily literary website that was launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and '' Electric Literatur ...

, the novel received "rave" reviews based on twenty-four critic reviews with sixteen being "rave" and four being "positive" and four being "mixed". The poet

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; May 9, 1938 – January 9, 2023), known as Charles Simic, was a Serbian American poet and poetry co-editor of ''The Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for '' The W ...

wrote in ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...

'' that ''The Tiger's Wife'' "is a remarkable first novel". Simic went on to say, "Téa Obreht is an extraordinarily talented writer, skilled at combining different types of narrative — from objective depiction of events to stories mixing the fabulous and the real — in a way that brings to mind the novels of

Mikhail Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( ; rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪdʑ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright. His novel ''The M ...

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...

, and Milorad Pavić, the Serbian author of ''

Dictionary of the Khazars ''Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel'' ( sr-cyrl, Хазарски речник, rtl=yes, ) is the first novel by Serbian writer Milorad Pavić, published in 1984. Originally written in Serbian, the novel has been translated into many ...

."''Simic, Charles (26 May 2011)
"The Weird Beauty of the Well-Told Tale"
''NYRB'' (nybooks.com). Retrieved 10 May 2011. A review in ''

The New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation in New Zealand, ...

'' notes that, "Reviewers have praised Obreht's vibrant imagery and skilful interweaving of fact and folklore, ritual and superstition. British paper the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' dubbed her 'a compelling new voice'; its rival the ''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

'' 'a natural born storyteller'." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reviewer Liesl Schillinger praised the novel, asserting that it was "filled with astonishing immediacy and presence, fleshed out with detail that seems firsthand."

Awards

''The Tiger's Wife'' won the

in 2011. The annual prize, recognising "excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing from throughout the world", then included £30,000 in cash and the "Bessie", a limited edition bronze figurine. At 25, Obreht was the youngest winner of the Orange Prize at the time of her award. In 2011 Obreht was also a finalist for the

and the Dylan Thomas Prize for English-language writers age 18 to 30.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tigers Wife 2011 novels 2011 debut novels Novels by Téa Obreht Weidenfeld & Nicolson books Random House books Women's Prize for Fiction–winning works Balkans in fiction Novels about tigers Novels about death Novels set in zoos