Téa Obreht

This was a beautifully written tale of a family in the Balkans before, during and after the war, incorporating several threads with the myths of the area and the harsh realism. Having just returned from a trip to the Middle East, one quote struck me deeply: "But now, in the country's last hour, it was clear to him, as it was to me, that the cease-fire had provided the delusion of normalcy but never peace. When your fight has purpose - to free you from something, to interfere on the behalf of an innocent - it has a hope of finality. When the fight is about unraveling - when it is about your name, the places to which your blood is anchored, the attachment of your name to some landmark or event - there is nothing but hate, and the long, slow progression of people who feed on it and are fed it, meticulously by the ones who come before them. Then the fight is endless, and comes in waves and waves, but always retains its capacity to surprise those who hope against it." A spellbinding first novel by a writer to watch.… (mais)

“We're all entitled to our superstitions.”

The Tiger’s Wife is the prize-winning debut novel by Téa Obreht, an author born in the former Yugoslavia. The book is set in an unnamed Balkan country, thought to be Serbia, and won her the Orange Prize for Fiction and nomination for many other awards. It is a dual timeline historical fiction with strong elements of magic realism and folktales.

Natalia Stefanovic lives in “The City” (probably Belgrade in Serbia, which was bombed in 1999). She has taken a trip to a clinic across the border, presumably in Croatia, with fellow-doctor Zoe to undertake immunisation of children in the area. While she is there she learns of her grandfather’s death, which inexplicably occurred in a small obscure coastal town called Zdrevkov, which no-one knew he was visiting, far from his home. Natalia tries to piece together her grandfather’s story and shed light on why he was in Zdrevkov. The book shifts between this search, and stories of her grandfather’s life. In particular it revolves around two folktales that interweave with her grandfather’s story.
“Everything necessary to understand my grandfather lies between two stories…the story of the tiger’s wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life — of my grandfather’s days in the army; his great love for my grandmother; the years he spent as a surgeon and a tyrant of the University.”

The first story is about the “deathless man,” Gavran Gailé, who can foresee people’s deaths but is unable to die himself. The second story, the Tiger’s Wife, involves a tiger which escaped from the zoo during WWII and sheltered around her grandfather’s childhood village Galina. The tiger forms a close bond with the deaf-mute, battered wife of the butcher, and triggers the villagers’ fears, anxiety and entrenched superstitions.

The book does not clearly outline the historical events, but makes references to WWII, its aftermath, and also the subsequent wars tearing the region into pieces. It makes references to the hardships her grandfather faces as a physician, being suspected of “loyalist feelings toward the unified state” and thus being suspended from practicing medicine, but continuing in secret. It deals with the trauma of the division of Yugoslavia. “Once separate, the pieces that made up our old country no longer carried the same characteristics that had formerly represented their respective parts of the whole.”

I found this to be an intriguing and beautifully written book. The descriptions of the aftermath of the war and the superstitious beliefs and actions of the villagers were insightful and vivid. It seemed to lose momentum however in the later parts of the book. I would definitely be keen to read another book by this author.… (mais)

TW/CW: Scary situations, character death, language

RATING: 3.5/5

REVIEW: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and am voluntarily writing an honest review.

The Morningside is the story of refugees looking for home in a large tenement building after a massive war and climate crisis in what seems to be near future North America.

The main character, a little girl named Silvia, grows up in this building with her mother, and the book follows her from the time she’s ten years old until she becomes a grown woman.

While this book was no doubt well written, I can’t say that it really grabbed me. It felt like I kept waiting for something to happen, and when it finally did, it felt rushed and unsatisfying. Also, I thought the setting and the post-apocalyptic world was pretty under-utilized. When I finished this book, it felt strongly like I was missing something, but after a week thinking about it, I still can’t figure out what that was.

This is not a bad book, in fact it’s pretty interesting in places. But for me, it failed to deliver what it could have been.… (mais)