The Tiger's Wife

From the book cover
In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather's recent death. Searching for clues she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with "the deathless man." But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her - the legend of the tiger's wife.
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Téa Obreht's debut novel, The Tiger's Wife, won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction.

The Tiger's Wife is a book best savoured. Rich themes, mythical ideas and subtle yet purposeful writing make this the type of novel destined to be studied in some university English one day soon.

The Tiger's Wife is such a patient and luxurious read, it's hard to believe it's written by a 25-year-old. In the exclusive interview at the back of the book, author Jennifer Egan comments on Obreht's strength and willingness to leave things unsaid (a skill she herself was unable to master in her 20s). Obreht explains that as a reader she prefers to figure things out for herself and so she struggled to give her readers an active reading experience where everything is not explained 100 per cent.

This is my biggest issue with The Tiger's Wife.

I missed the information that was unsaid. One of the missing pieces that kept nagging at me was what happened to Natalia's father. At one point we almost find out when the guy from the draft comes to investigate their household and asks her grandfather about his son-in-law.

War is ever-present in this novel. The only war that is given a name is World War II, which takes place when the narrator's grandfather is a young man. Other wars are mentioned but not by name so it's hard to say which Baltic country this story takes place in. This doesn't bother me so much because I'm not familiar with the geography of that region or the history. But, I imagine this will bother a lot of people in the Baltics once it's translated.

Overall, The Tiger's Wife is definitely a strong novel worth reading. I don't feel like I got everything there is to the story so I'll definitely be reading it again.

The main themes are war, storytelling, myths, family and death.

4/5