"The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht

Set in Yugoslavia after its disintegration, a young girl doctor explores her memories of her grandfather, also a doctor, and the circumstances of his death. The petty feuds and jealousies of the isolated village in which he grew up serve as a microcosm for the internecine wars that have torn families apart in the Balkan civil war. And with the hatred and fear comes superstition.

A tiger escapes from the zoo and finds its way to the village in which the grandfather is a young boy. Here he is looked after and fed by the butcher's deaf-mute wife; the butcher who is gay and a wannabe musician and who was tricked into marrying her, batters his wife. Then the butcher disappears and his wife is pregnant. The village believes that she has wed the devil, in the shape of the tiger, and seeks her death.

This story is mingled with the tale of the deathless man whom the grandfather doctor meets at key moments. The deathless man may or may not be a vampire; he claims to be death's nephew; it is certain that he carries a coffee cup in which he can see whether a man will imminently die or live.

An unusual mixture of reality and magic, lyrically and compellingly told. 

Winner of the 2011 Women's Prize for fiction.

July 2012; 336 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God