Lead Review (The Tiger’s Wife)

3,75*

This is a creative story, imbued with magical realism, folklore and fantastical elements. It also encompasses the changing nature of the area in which it is set (the Balkans). The author is from Belgrade, so it is quite possible that the unspecified location has been inspired by the city and its environs.

Natalia is on her way to inoculate children in an orphanage across the border. She learns her grandfather – also a doctor – has died, and thus begins a journey into myth and fable, specifically the tiger’s wife and the deathless man.

Her grandfather has a great affinity with The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, and therefore recognises the tiger for what it is, striding down the street, an escapee from its bombed enclosures. The eponymous character of the title is a young Muslim girl, who can neither hear nor speak, and functions as the “outsider” in her community as the Germans encroach.

This is a story of the many manifestations of death. of societal values and what it means to be on the fringes of community. It was first published in 2011 to much acclaim. Written in an accomplished style, it is a bold construct which requires attentive reading.