The Tiger's Wife Book

'Having sifted through everything I have heard about the tiger and his wife I can tell you that this much is fact: in April of 1941 without declaration or warning the German bombs started falling over the city and did not stop for three days. The tiger did not know that they were bombs...' A tiger escapes from the local zoo padding through the ruined streets and onwards to a ridge above the Balkan village of Galina. His nocturnal visits hold the villagers in a terrified thrall. But for one boy the tiger is a thing of magic - Shere Khan awoken from the pages of The Jungle Book. Natalia is the granddaughter of that boy. Now a doctor she is visiting orphanages after another war has devastated the Balkans. On this journey she receives word of her beloved grandfather's death far from their home in circumstances shrouded in mystery. From fragments of stories her grandfather told her as a child Natalia realises he may have died searching for 'the deathless man' a vagabond who was said to be immortal.Struggling to understand why a man of science would undertake such a quest she stumbles upon a clue that will lead her to a tattered copy of The Jungle Book and then to the extraordinary story of the tiger's wife.

Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 A spellbinding journey through the troubled history and colourful folklore of the Balkans, from the youngest ever winner of the Orange Prize. Natalia is on a quest: to discover the truth about her...