For most of us death arrives after a long life, whether through the intervention of a medical diagnosis or at the end of a period of growing confusion and loss. However, for the characters in this stunning debut novel, death is something altogether different. It is the rituals of the forty days of the soul seeking its recently lost body; a family plagued with illness from the improperly interned remains of loved one; the “mora” collecting gravestone coins to console the bereaved; a cup of coffee with the “deathless” man. Tea Obreht, named by The New Yorker as one of the top twenty American authors under 40, taps ancient veins of fear, guilt and remorse in a story that rises from the ashes of the recent Balkan wars. And against all odds Obeht has just won the Orange Prize!