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Saturday, August 20, 2011

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht


This is a spectacular novel that has a magical underbelly. It hints at the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it is that good. The author is from Belgrade, and while she emigrated to the United States as a child, there is a war-torn weariness to the country that she describes in this book.
Natalia is a physician who is very close to her grandfather, who is also a physician--he has filled her childhood with wonderful and sometimes quite sobering fairy tales. While they seem fantastic, unreal, and dark, truth and fairy tale do have a way of blending in this book--which is real and which is imaginary--and sometimes it is really a bit of both. I found the story captivating, and wanted to read the slender volume in one sitting, so leave yourself time to do that.

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