The Tiger's Wife
by OBREHT, Tea
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Near Fine
- Seller
-
Gloucester City, New Jersey, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Téa Obreht was born in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and T he Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in New York.
Reviews
The Tiger’s Wife is the first novel by Serbian-born American author, Tea Obrecht, and is the winner of the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction. Young doctor, Natalia Stefanovic is on an assignment with her life-long friend Zora to innoculate the children of a remote Balkan village orphanage when she learns of her grandfather’s death. Her grandmother believes he was on his way to meet Natalia, is distraught that he died alone in a town none of them recognises, and that his belongings are missing. As she tries to come to terms with the loss of a man who loomed large in her life, Natalia is distracted from her medical duties by memories of her grandfather and also by the strange digging activities in a nearby vineyard. Obrecht employs three narrative strands: Natalia relates what happens on her vaccination excursion; her grandfather, a well-respected doctor, tells of his three encounters with a deathless man; and Natalia chronicles the events of a certain winter in World War Two, when the village her grandfather grew up in was visited by a tiger. In each of the narrations, secondary characters are elegantly given backstories so that a collection of short stories is seamlessly woven into the whole. Obrecht’s characters are interesting and authentic and her descriptive prose is wonderfully evocative: “Pigeons, clustered thick enough to be visible from the hill, shuffled like cowled women up and down the street..” Against a backdrop of seemingly ever-present war, Obrecht explores superstitions and customs, secrets and lies, fears and rituals, history and folklore, myths and mysteries, love and revenge, and of course, death. This moving and thought-provoking novel is an amazing debut. Readers will look forward to more from Obrecht.
This novel is set in an unidentified Balkan country that is recovering from an internal war which has split the country. The heroine, Natalia, is a young doctor who has been heavily influenced throughout her life by her grandfather, who is also a doctor. When her grandfather dies, Natalia is thrown into a fit of remembrance of her many experiences with her grandfather. Half of these memories are fables of a contemporary sort; e.g., he has told her a story of a man who cannot die. His fascination with tigers was passed on to her in a love of The Jungle Book and Shere Kahn. After her grandfather’s death, Natalia finds out that an even more fabulous story, involving a tiger, has happened to him in the past, the story of the Tiger’s Wife. This book is an interesting mix of contemporary science and history with the village legends of the Balkan countryside.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 435796
- Title
- The Tiger's Wife
- Author
- OBREHT, Tea
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Near Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- Random House
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2011
- Keywords
- FirstBook
Terms of Sale
Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA
All books are first editions unless otherwise noted. All books are returnable within ten days if returned in the same condition as sent. We accept VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS, DISCOVER, PAYPAL, checks and money orders. New Jersey residents please add 6.625% sales tax. All items guaranteed, all items subject to prior sale. Members ABAA, ILAB. Shipping is $4.50 for Media Mail, $10.00 for Priority Mail or UPS Ground. Tracking is provided for every order. Alternate shipping available by request. Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know extra shipping is required.
About the Seller
Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA
About Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA
Glossary
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- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Dustwrapper
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- Fine
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- Spine
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- Cocked
- Refers to a state where the spine of a book is lightly "twisted" in such a way that the front and rear boards of a book do not...