BKMT READING GUIDES
The Tiger's Wife: A Novel
by Téa Obreht
Paperback : 384 pages
109 clubs reading this now
51 members have read this book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Spectacular . . . [Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop.”—Entertainment Weekly
Look for Téa Obreht’s second ...
Introduction
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Spectacular . . . [Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop.”—Entertainment Weekly
Look for Téa Obreht’s second novel, Inland, now available.
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times • Entertainment Weekly • The Christian Science Monitor • The Kansas City Star • Library Journal
Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.
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.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Economist • Vogue • Slate • Chicago Tribune • The Seattle Times • Dayton Daily News • Publishers Weekly • Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered
“Stunning . . . a richly textured and searing novel.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“[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
Discussion Questions
1. Natalia says that the key to her grandfather’s life and death“lies between two stories: the story of the tiger’s wife, and the
story of the deathless man.” What power do the stories we tell
about ourselves have to shape our identity and help us understand
our lives?
2. Which of the different ways the characters go about making
peace with the dead felt familiar from your own life? Which
took you by surprise?
3. Natalia believes that her grandfather’s memories of the village
apothecary “must have been imperishable.” What lesson do
you think he might have learned from what happened to the
Apothecary?
4. What significance does the tiger have to the different characters
in the novel: Natalia, her grandfather, the tiger’s wife, the
villagers? Why do you think Natalia’s grandfather’s reaction to
the tiger’s appearance in the village was so different than the
rest of the villagers?
5. “The story of this war—dates, names, who started it, why—
that belongs to everyone,” Natalia’s grandfather tells her. But
“those moments you keep to yourself” are more important. By
eliding place names and specific events of recent Balkan history,
what do you think the author is doing?
6. When the deathless man and the grandfather share a last
meal before the bombing of Sarobor, the grandfather urges the
deathless man to tell the waiter his fate so he can go home and
be with his family. Is Gavran Gailé right to decide to stop
telling people that they are going to die? Would you rather
know your death was coming or go “in suddenness”?
7. Did knowing more about Luka’s past make him more sympathetic?
Why do you think the author might have chosen to
give the back stories of Luka, Dariša the Bear, and the apothecary?
8. The copy of The Jungle Book Natalia’s grandfather always
carries around in his coat pocket is not among the possessions
she collects after his death. What do you think happens to it?
9. The novel moves back and forth between myth and modern-
day “real life.” What did you think of the juxtaposition of
folklore and contemporary realism?
10. Of all the themes of this novel—war, storytelling, family,
death, myth, etc.—which one resonated the most for you?
From the publisher
Suggested by Members
Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
Praise: Praise Advance praise for The Tiger’s Wife “[A] brilliant debut…[Téa] Obreht is an expert at depicting history through aftermath, people through the love they inspire, and place through the stories that endure; the reflected world she creates is both immediately recognizable and a legend in its own right. Obreht is talented far beyond her years, and her unsentimental faith in language, dream, and memory is a pleasure.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review “Not even Obreht’s place on The New Yorker’s current “20 Under 40” list of exceptional writers will prepare readers for the transporting richness and surprise of this gripping novel of legends and loss…[Contains] moments of breathtaking magic, wildness and beauty…Every word, every scene, every thought is blazingly alive in this many-faceted, spellbinding, and rending novel of death, succor, and remembrance.” – Booklist, starred review “Dizzyingly nuanced yet crisp, [and] muscularly written…This complex, humbling, and beautifully crafted debut from one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 is highly recommended for anyone seriously interested in contemporary fiction.” – Library Journal, starred review “A cracking, complex, gorgeously wrought saga that resonates as a meditation on life, love…and our responsibility to the stories we inherit from our grandparents…Obreht is a natural literary descendant of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Gabriel Garcia Marquez….The Tiger’s Wife is an original and wonderful novel…It makes for a thrilling beginning to what will certainly be a great literary career.” – Kate Christensen, Elle “Deftly walks the line between the realistic and the fantastical…In Obreht’s expert hands, the novel’s mythology, while rooted in a foreign world, comes to seem somehow familiar, like the dark fairy tales of our own youth, the kind that spooked us into reading them again and again…[Reveals] oddly comforting truths about death, belief in the impossible, and the art of letting go.” – O: The Oprah Magazine “Téa Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years.” —Colum McCann “A novel of surpassing beauty, exquisitely wrought and magical. Téa Obreht is a towering new talent.”—T. C. Boyle “A marvel of beauty and imagination. Téa Obreht is a tremendously talented writer.”—Ann Patchett “It is difficult, maybe impossible, when reading a hotly anticipated first novel by a celebrated 25-year-old-writer, not to think about her age, to subconsciously search for evidence of callowness, inexperience and showiness…I opened The Tiger’s Wife prepared to empathize with [Téa] Obreht’s youth, and to temper my reaction if the novel didn’t, as a whole, stand up to the expectations and hype. Because, really how could it? But the book does, and then some. Obreht is a natural literary descendant of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Gabriel García Marquez…After a few pages I forgot her age entirely except to marvel at the precocity of her work’s vast intelligence, at the beauty of her descriptive prose, at her authoritative voice, and her controlled mastery of a complex narrative…The Tiger’s Wife is an original and wonderful novel…It makes for a thrilling beginning to what will certainly be a great literary career.” – Kate Christensen, reviewing for Elle “One of the most extraordinary debut novels of recent memory…A gorgeous farrago of stories in which realism collides with myth, superstition with empirical fact, and allegory with history…Obreht elides the sentimental Chagall villages that other writers have made of Eastern Europe, crafting instead something far more ambitious, and universal: an apotheosis of storytelling as a bulwark against brutality – and a balm for grief.” – VogueBook Club Recommendations
Recommended to book clubs by 12 of 31 members.
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