In this archived edition of the Best of the Book Nook we reprise an interview that was recorded earlier this year. At the time that this recording was made Téa Obreht was preparing for her first book tour. Her debut novel, "The Tiger's Wife" was one of the most anticipated novels of 2011. The book wasn't out yet and this young writer was eager to embark on this grand adventure.
Téa Obreht recently won the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction for "The Tiger's Wife." We present this re-broadcast of that original interview so that you can savor again those moments of anticipation as Téa Obreht prepared to encounter her audience for the first time.
Obreht describes how she merged three disparate story lines into a unified whole. The first story line involves a tiger that has escaped from a zoo. The next element is based upon Balkan folk tales about a "deathless man." He is portrayed by Obreht as a humorously haunting harbinger of death. The last thread was derived from the author's grief over the death of her grandfather.
