Téa Obreht Livres

There's the world you can see, and then there's the one you can't. After being expelled from their ancestral home, Silvia and her mother arrive in Island City, where they live and work at The Morningside, a dilapidated luxury tower managed by Silvia's aunt, Ena. Feeling adrift, Silvia struggles with her mother's secrecy about their family's past, knowing little about her origins or the reasons for their departure. Ena offers a glimpse into their heritage through folktales of a beautiful, communal homeland, contrasting sharply with Silvia's lonely existence. Captivated by these stories, Silvia begins to see the world through a lens of magic and becomes fixated on the enigmatic Bezi Duras, a reclusive resident of the penthouse who only ventures out at night with her three massive hounds. As Silvia embarks on a quest to uncover the truth about Bezi and her own haunted history, she risks everything in the process. This novel explores the narratives we share and those we keep hidden, as characters seek to understand their origins and envision their futures. Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, it delves into the complexities of storytelling and identity.

The sometimes crushing power of myth, story, and memory is explored in the brilliant debut of Obreht, the youngest of the New Yorker's 20-under-40. Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living (and, in between suspensions, practicing) in an unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia, crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941, a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a mysterious deaf-mute woman. The evolving story of the tiger's wife, as the deaf-mute becomes known, forms one of three strands that sustain the novel, the other two being Natalia's efforts to care for orphans and a wayward family who, to lift a curse, are searching for the bones of a long-dead relative; and several of her grandfather's stories about Gavran Gailé, the deathless man, whose appearances coincide with catastrophe and who may hold the key to all the stories that ensnare Natalia. Obreht is an expert at depicting history through aftermath, people through the love they inspire, and place through the stories that endure; the reflected world she creates is both immediately recognizable and a legend in its own right. Obreht is talented far beyond her years, and her unsentimental faith in language, dream, and memory is a pleasure.