Our Evening with Téa Obreht

“This is an old soul who just picked up from a former life as a writer.”

– Cyndi Hughes of the Writers’ League of Texas describing Téa Obreht

When a new book is the focus of as much attention as a novel like The Tiger’s Wife, you can’t help but be a bit apprehensive about meeting the author behind the acclaim, particularly when you and your bookseller coworkers have loved the book as much as the reviewers and championed it as a Must Read to anyone who will listen. What if the reality of the person doesn’t live up to the voice with which you connected page after engrossing page? Worse yet, what if all this fame has gone to her head?

But then Téa Obreht arrives, and she is as warm and gracious and funny and charming as you’d dreamed, and you have one of the best nights of your bookselling life listening to her discuss what is deservedly the most acclaimed novel of the year thus far.

As BookPeople staffer Brian Contine, whose early insistent love of the The Tiger’s Wife encouraged us all to read it, introduced Téa to the crowded room and described the viral way in which the novel spread through the staff, Obreht stood on the sidelines beaming with excitement. This is her first novel, first book tour, her first time in Austin, and her enthusiasm matched that of the crowd who had turned out to celebrate the literary world’s latest star. The conversation, led by Cyndi Hughes of the Writers’ League of Texas, covered everything from Obreht’s literary influences (Mikhail Bulgakov, Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Raymond Chandler), to how she learned to speak English by watching Disney films her grandfather smuggled into the former Yugoslavia from Italy, to the soundtrack she listened to while writing the novel (Springsteen, Mozart, songs from those Disney movies.) Listening to her describe how she came to the book’s structure and worked through the story’s various drafts, there was no doubt we were listening to a master of her craft.

Signed copies of The Tiger’s Wife are available, though we don’t expect them to last long so reserve a copy soon if you’re interested. Below are a couple of clips from last night’s conversation. Enjoy.

–Julie W.

Téa discusses her decisions for the structure of The Tiger’s Wife:

Téa discusses her writing process for The Tiger’s Wife: