The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

 

Natalia is traveling with her friend, both doctors, to a small village in the Balkans to deliver vaccinations for the children there and provide some medications to the clinic as well as expertise for a few days.  On the way, she finds that her beloved grandfather has died, not at home as she would have expected, but only an hour or so from her destination.  

As she tries to process his death, she thins about the stories he told her growing up.  One was of the 'deathless man', a man who never dies but knows when others will.  She has also heard the story of the tiger's wife and it reminds her of the times when she and her grandfather would visit the zoo to see the tigers there.  

Natalia is crushed but determined to make her time count.  She helps a group of migrant workers who are digging in her host's vineyard.  She wants to treat a child of theirs who is sick but the father refuses.  The workers are digging for a relative the father had buried there years before and he insists that the body of this relative is making his family sick and nothing can be done until it is recovered and given a proper burial.  

This is a debut novel and garnered much praise.  It was a National Book Award finalist as well as being honored by various publications such The Library Journal and The New York Times.  Readers who have lost someone will sympathize with Natalia and her quest to make meaning of her grandfather's death.  Others will enjoy the look into a region of the world and its folktales that they didn't know.  Obreht was born in Yugoslavia and lived there until the age of twelve which gives realism to her work.  This book is recommended to literary fiction readers.