Doppelg?nger

Two elderly people, Artur and Isabella, meet and have a passionate sexual encounter on New Year's Eve. Details of the lives of Artur, a retired Yugoslav army captain, and Isabella, a Holocaust survivor, are revealed through police dossiers. As they fight loneliness and aging, they take comfort in small things: for Artur, a collection of 274 hats; for Isabella, a family of garden gnomes who live in her apartment. Later, we meet the ill-fated Pupi, who dreamed of becoming a sculptor but instead became a chemist and then a spy. As Eileen Battersby wrote, "As he stands, in the zoo, gazing at a pair of rhinos, in a city most likely present-day Belgrade, this battered Everyman feels very alone: 'I would like to tell someone, anyone, I'd like to tell someone: I buried Mother today.'" Pupi sets out to correct his family's crimes by returning silverware to its original Jewish owners through the help of an unlikely friend, a pawnbroker.

Described by Dasa Drndic as "my ugly little book," Doppelgänger was her personal favorite.

About the Author
Drndic, Dasa: - Dasa Drndic (1946-2018) wrote Trieste--"a masterpiece" (Financial Times)--shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and Belladonna--"one of the strangest and strongest books" (TLS) --winner of the 2018 Warwick Prize, and EEG--"a masterpiece" (Joshua Cohen).Curtis, S. D.: - S. D. Curtis is the Editor-in-Chief of Istros Books.Hawkesworth, Celia: - Celia Hawkesworth has translated The Museum of Unconditional Surrender by Dubravka Ugresic, Belladonna by Dasa Drndic--shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize--and Omer Pasha Latas by the Nobel Prize-winner Ivo Andric.