The Editor - April 12th, 2011
We are delighted to announce that Téa Obreht’s vibrant, delightful novel The Tiger’s Wife has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize For Fiction 2011.
Celebrating its sixteenth anniversary this year, the Orange Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.
Téa will be guest-blogging for us soon, but in the meantime listen to a fantastic audio extract here and scroll down for some of the rave reviews that her novel has garnered thus far …
‘Tea Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years.’
Colum McCann
‘This is a distinguished work by almost any standard, and a genuinely exciting debut… Obreht has a vibrant, rangy, full-bodied prose style, which moves expertly between realistic and mythic modes of storytelling, conjuring brilliant images on every page… a delightful work, as enchanting as it is surprising, and Obreht is a compelling new voice.’
THE SUNDAY TIMES
‘the myth-infused tale of a young doctor in a war-ravaged Balkan country trying to find the truth about her grandfather’s death. Obreht’s novel is that rarity: a debut that arrives fully formed, super smart but wearing its learning lightly. Above all The Tiger’s Wife bristles with confidence.’
FINANCIAL TIMES
‘Beautifully executed, haunting and lyrical, The Tiger’s Wife is an ambitious novel that succeeds on all counts. It’s a book you will want to read again and again.’
THE INDEPENDENT
‘The Tiger’s Wife, is assured, eloquent and not easily forgotten…war is just a backdrop, religions barely identified. It is the tiger, the deathless man, and the inquisitive doctor who lead the story through its layers of modern-day reality, magical realism, and folklore…her pacing in the book is delicious – Obreht has the storyteller’s gift for suspense, and holds back details until the reader can wait no more…she has lived up to the early hype.’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
‘The brilliant black comedy and matryoshka-style narrative are among the novel’s great joys…Obreht has prodigious talent for storytelling and imagery’
THE GUARDIAN
‘Obreht’s landscape hovers half in and half out of fable – where villagers who daily risk being hoisted by landmines also fear malign spirits, tigers’ brides and men who transform into bears…It’s a part of the world that Obreht has made her imagination’s own: raucous and strange and gorgeous and rather haunting. This is a pretty formidable first novel. Here be tigers.’
FINANCIAL TIMES
‘The Tiger’s Wife, [Obreht's] debut novel written on a creative writing course at Cornell University is dauntlessly composed. Cool American realism collides with abundant magic realism…she is a natural born storyteller and this is a startlingly suggestive novel about the dying out of myths and superstitions and rituals that bind people to place: the retreat of the spirits.’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Tags: Orange Prize, Shortlist, Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife
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