Doppelgänger consists of two stories that skillfully revisit the question of “doubles” (famously explored by Stevenson, Dostoyevsky and others), and how an individual is perpetually caught between their own beliefs and those imposed on them by society. ‘Arthur and Isabella’ is a story of the relationship between two elderly people who meet on New Year’s Eve — a romantic encounter which turns into a grotesque portrayal of the loneliness of old age. The second story ‘Pupi’ — a strange mirror of the first — centres on the life of a man who ends up on the streets and associates only with street-sellers the rhinoceroses in the zoo. Together these tales crate the highly original atmosphere that Drndić is famous for in all her works.

"The capacity to see the bricolage of a reticent, morally compromised, elegiac past-and, more unsettlingly, how that past might see us-is a central feature of the work of the Croatian writer Dasa Drndic." Dustin Illingworth, Paris Review; `Drndic is relentless; her righteousness is passionate. Human anguish seeps from the pages, yet her writing proves unexpectedly exhilarating.'m Eileen Battersby, LA Review of Books; `Dasa Drndic is a writer who digs tunnels and refuses to make compromises; her prose attracts the same uncompromising readers.' Zdravko Zima, Novi List

Daša Drndić is a distinguished Croatian novelist, playwright and literary critic, author of radio plays and documentaries. She is the author of thirteen novels including Leica Format, Trieste and Belladonna - all published in the UK by Macelhose Press. For the latter two, she was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 and the EBRD Literature Prize 2018.