Doppelgänger

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.