The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

I wished I knew more about the history of the Balkans so I could completely understand this allegorical tale of life and death in that area. Natalia is a doctor like her grandfather before her. He dies while she is on her way to inoculate children in a distant village. In her head are the stories her grandfather told her about escaped tigers who haunt a village and befriend a deaf-mute woman he knew. These magical tales seem somehow possible in the superstitious atmosphere surrounding the village. Along with the tales of the tiger are her grandfather's encounters with the "deathless" man and the mystery surrounding his death and the worn copy of Kipling's Jungle Book he carried everywhere. Throughout are references to a geographical area divided and reorganized by so many wars that nationality may be as much about which of these stories you carry inside as the name of the country on your passport.