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THE first-time novelist Téa Obreht’s book The Tiger’s Wife, a surreal, seductive meander through recent history in the Balkans, has turned the 25-year-old into the latest literary superstar after she was crowned the youngest winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction recently. Obreht, who speaks English as a second language, was an outside choice for the award for women’s writing, the most prestigious in fiction alongside the Man Booker. Pundits had named the Canadian author Emma Donoghue the prize’s favourite for Room, her chilling account of a boy and mother imprisoned in a bedroom.
Judging chair, author and broadcaster Bettany Hughes said the decision to recognise Obreht with the `A330,000 award was "brave", revealing that it was not a unanimous decision. "There’s something special about the book, as it changed the way the judges looked at the world, which is really quite extraordinary," she said. "The Balkans really is a territory which flashes past many people’s lives very quickly but this book gives us an intimate understanding of the place." Obreht’s story is as
extraordinary as her novel’s. She lived in Belgrade until she was
seven. Her family then moved to Cyprus, Cairo, and the US, and she began
writing the novel, the story of a young doctor coping with her
grandfather’s death, after graduating from the University of Southern
California. Obreht spent three years writing the work and is currently
working on her second novel. — The Independent
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After
her acceptance of the award, Obreht said: "I was stunned and I did
not expect it and I did not prepare anything. I’m really still not
processing it. It is a tremendous honour." She added she was glad
her book was being translated into Serbo-Croatian so her grandmother
could read it.