Julie Otsuka and Téa Obreht Selected as 2011 National Book Award Finalists!

We are proud to announce that The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka and The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht have been selected as fiction finalists for the 2011 National Book Award. We are delighted to offer them our congratulations on this incredible honor!

The nomination for Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic comes amid glowing praise for the novel, published in August. Otsuka’s long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’ nearly a century ago.

The Tiger’s Wife is the critically acclaimed debut novel from one of our newest speakers, Téa Obreht. At age 26, she is the youngest author nominated for this year’s National Book Award and the youngest author to be included in The New Yorker’s “Best 20 Writers Under 40.” Born in Belgrade, Obreht emigrated to the U.S. in 1997, and began writing The Tiger’s Wife while earning her MFA at Cornell University. In the novel, Obreht blends the stark realities of post-war Balkan life with wondrous evocations of the supernatural, including a man who cannot die, and a woman wed to a tiger.

The winners of The National Book Award will be announced on Wednesday, November 16th. For booking information on either Julie Otsuka or Téa Obreht, please call 212-572-2013 or email us at rhspeakers@randomhouse.com.