Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.42 AVERAGE
3.42 AVERAGE
Now shortlisted for the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize
The judge's citation
Croatian writer Daša Drndić, who died in June 2018, was best known until recently in the English-speaking world for her 2007 novel, translated into English as Trieste (2012) by Ellen Elias-Bursać. But she achieved greater, and deserved, prominence, with the 2017 translation by Celia Hawkesworth of her 2012 novel, Belladonna (my review). Hawkesworth's translation won the 2018 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation Prize and was shortlisted for the 2018 EBRD Literature Prize and 2018 Oxford Weidenfeld Prize, although rather oddly overlooked for the Man Booker International (I suspect a late publication date in the MBI cycle may have been a factor).
2018 has seen two further translations appear, E.E.G., by Celia Hawkesworth from Drndić's 2016 original, her last novel, a book that features Andres Ban from Belladonna and is also in the style of Trieste, and this, an earlier (2002) and rather different work, Doppelgänger translated into English by Celia Hawkesworth and Susan Curtis.
Susan Curtis is the founding editor of Istros Books, who have published Doppelgänger (her other English language novels being published by Machelose Press), and this novel I believe was gifted to her by the author as a tribute to her work in promoting the literature of the region. As Istros explains:
Artur and Isabella has the eponymous and elderly pair briefly meet on 31 December 1999 in the small Croatian town where both live, and have a rather pitiful sexual encounter
HE and SHE will meet.
They don't know if yet, they don't know they'll neet while they're getting ready to step into the night, into the night of New Year's Eve, bathed and old and dressed up and alone, as they are preparing to walk the streets of this small town, a small town with many bakeries, an ugly small town.
It's New Year's Eve.
It's now they'll meet, now.
He's seventy nine and his name is Artur.
We learn in the story how each of them came to be living in the town, their family lives disrupted by the 2nd world war. Isabella's flat contains 36 gnomes, named after the 36 members of her extended family that died in Flossenburg, Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, and she has an obsession with chocolate balls from various central European confectioners, and their silver wrappers, also explained by her past. Artur has a similar obsession with Italy, hats and famous epileptics. And, in the background, the secret police are documenting their pasts - and their sudden subsequent demise.
Pupi is told from the perspective of Printz, aged 55 (Pupi his childhood nickname) living in Belgrade also in the late 20th century. It opens (and closes) with him observing rhinos at the city zoo, and he also frequents a nearby park. The following gives a feel for his rather scatalogical and bodily function focused thoughts:
This excellent essay cum review explains the set-up better than I can: http://www.publicbooks.org/the-righteous-anger-of-dasa-drndic/
As the novel progresses, the tone becomes increasingly bitter. Printz embarks on a rant against the Catholic Church that could have come straight from the pages of Thomas Bernhard, and Daša Drndić has confirmed the key role he played in her development as a writer. See e.g. this interview https://www.revistadepovestiri.ro/interview-with-dasa-drndic-and-dragan-velikic/
Maybe none of us has his own life. Is your own life unconditionally yours.
A very strong novel, very different to Belladonna in style but ultimately equally powerful.
Bibliography.
Daša Drndić's last 6 works of fiction were:
Doppelgänger (2002), translated into English as Doppelgänger ( 2018) by Celia Hawkesworth and SD Curtis
Leica Format (2003) (English 2015), translated into English as Leica Format (2015) by Celia Hawkesworth
Sonnenschein (2007), translated into English as Trieste (2012) by Ellen Elias-Bursać
April u Berlinu (2009), as yet untranslated
Belladonna (2012), translated into English as Belladonna 2017, by Celia Hawkesworth,
E.E.G (2016), translated into English as E.E.G. (2018), by Celia Hawkesworth
The judge's citation
When Daša Drndić died at the age of seventy-one in June last year, we lost a writer of astounding force and fierce detail. In an interview published in the Paris Review in 2017, she said that 'art should shock, hurt, offend, intrigue, be a merciless critic of the merciless times'; Doppelgänger is two works – one short, one long – which live up to this brief, while also being unashamedly strange and comic.They do not know, because they are old and forgetful, they do not know that inside them crouch their Doppelgängers who whisper, while they piss themselves, while they breathe, slowly and spasmodically, while they tremble, while they eat chocolates. Their disgusted Doppelgängers threaten and summon them, call and shout, come on - join us.
Croatian writer Daša Drndić, who died in June 2018, was best known until recently in the English-speaking world for her 2007 novel, translated into English as Trieste (2012) by Ellen Elias-Bursać. But she achieved greater, and deserved, prominence, with the 2017 translation by Celia Hawkesworth of her 2012 novel, Belladonna (my review). Hawkesworth's translation won the 2018 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation Prize and was shortlisted for the 2018 EBRD Literature Prize and 2018 Oxford Weidenfeld Prize, although rather oddly overlooked for the Man Booker International (I suspect a late publication date in the MBI cycle may have been a factor).
2018 has seen two further translations appear, E.E.G., by Celia Hawkesworth from Drndić's 2016 original, her last novel, a book that features Andres Ban from Belladonna and is also in the style of Trieste, and this, an earlier (2002) and rather different work, Doppelgänger translated into English by Celia Hawkesworth and Susan Curtis.
Susan Curtis is the founding editor of Istros Books, who have published Doppelgänger (her other English language novels being published by Machelose Press), and this novel I believe was gifted to her by the author as a tribute to her work in promoting the literature of the region. As Istros explains:
Istros is the old Greek and Thracian name for the lower Danube River, which winds its way down from its source in Germany and flows into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and goes on to cross many of the countries of South-East Europe: Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. Its watershed also extends to other neighbouring countries, with one of the main Danubian tributaries, the Sava, serving Slovenia and Bosnia/Herzegovina, while also feeding the waterways and lakes of Macedonia and Montenegro and Albania. These are the countries of focus for Istros Books, evoking the image of the Danube river flowing carelessly across the borders of Europe and encapsulating the ideal of the free-flow of knowledge and the cultural exchange that books promote.Doppelgänger consists, at first sight, of two novellas, the 36-page Artur and Isabella, translated by Curtis, and the 115 page Pupi, by Hawkesworth, although as one reads a key link between the stories emerges. The prose style is somewhat different from Belladonna, simpler, lighter, more playful, although ultimately the content is equally dark.
Our mission is to shine a light on that ‘other ’ Europe and reveal its glories through the works of its best writers. We endeavour to find the best from a wealth of creativity and to offer it to a new audience of English speakers.
Artur and Isabella has the eponymous and elderly pair briefly meet on 31 December 1999 in the small Croatian town where both live, and have a rather pitiful sexual encounter
HE and SHE will meet.
They don't know if yet, they don't know they'll neet while they're getting ready to step into the night, into the night of New Year's Eve, bathed and old and dressed up and alone, as they are preparing to walk the streets of this small town, a small town with many bakeries, an ugly small town.
It's New Year's Eve.
It's now they'll meet, now.
He's seventy nine and his name is Artur.
We learn in the story how each of them came to be living in the town, their family lives disrupted by the 2nd world war. Isabella's flat contains 36 gnomes, named after the 36 members of her extended family that died in Flossenburg, Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, and she has an obsession with chocolate balls from various central European confectioners, and their silver wrappers, also explained by her past. Artur has a similar obsession with Italy, hats and famous epileptics. And, in the background, the secret police are documenting their pasts - and their sudden subsequent demise.
Pupi is told from the perspective of Printz, aged 55 (Pupi his childhood nickname) living in Belgrade also in the late 20th century. It opens (and closes) with him observing rhinos at the city zoo, and he also frequents a nearby park. The following gives a feel for his rather scatalogical and bodily function focused thoughts:
The biggest monument in the park is called the Monument to the Victor, which, after the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia sounds terrifying and wrong. Printz used to stand on the ramparts of the fortress watching the rivers merge.The story tells of his family, opening with the death of his mother, and later his father, as well as his dealings with his greedy sister-in-law, but also gives us his family background, from a Croatian family but in Serbia when the Balkan conflict erupts.
The confluence is murky and muddy now.
From the park you used to see sandy islands in the distance, white islands, now dark with the excrement of pigeons and river gulls.
Gulls eat trash and their shit is black.
In some parks there were trees with hanging branches, so that those parks looked like hanging gardens. There were hiding places. There was soft grass for couples in love. That was in his youth.
That was when Printz was young. I’m Printz.
Printz leaves the rise in the zoo. He goes in search of a hiding place.
The grass is wet and dirty, the grass in the park, the park is big and empty. It is still drizzling. Printz has expensive shoes.
Floresheim shoes, black, with perforations.
In those hiding places dead rats lie, stray dogs whelp, and stray cats have their young there too, there are a lot of strays in this city. In those hiding places animals and people store their inner waste, their intestinal waste, so those hiding places are messy and smelly.
I know, I tour them.
Printz comes to a hiding place behind the northern wall of the fortress. He bends down, peers in, scatters the rubbish with his foot, there are heaps of rubbish: condoms, plastic bags, bloody pads, shit- smeared pieces of toilet paper, sooty candles, crumpled matchboxes, small coins, old coins from his childhood.
I see the coins that fall out of lovers’ pockets (mine too, mine too, long ago), lovers rock up and down on the soft grass, the grass used to be soft, they rock on the clean grass, now it’s neglected.
Printz is not looking for anything.
I’m not looking for anything. I’m remembering.
This excellent essay cum review explains the set-up better than I can: http://www.publicbooks.org/the-righteous-anger-of-dasa-drndic/
As the novel progresses, the tone becomes increasingly bitter. Printz embarks on a rant against the Catholic Church that could have come straight from the pages of Thomas Bernhard, and Daša Drndić has confirmed the key role he played in her development as a writer. See e.g. this interview https://www.revistadepovestiri.ro/interview-with-dasa-drndic-and-dragan-velikic/
Which writers changed radically or had a big influence on your writing? At the beginning?Printz is on a mission to discover the source of some inherited family silver, which only came into the family's possession after the war, and through that we learn of a crucial connection to Isabella from the first novella. As Printz concludes:
D.D.: I don ’t know when the beginning was, it was a long time ago (laughs). But what comes to mind immediately is Thomas Bernhard, because he gave me the courage, I saw that you can be angry, you don’t have to be polite, you can be nasty, you can criticize. And while reading him I was so happy that I had the right to be angry: with my country, with politics. Because during this old system I was just thinking now: you could talk softly against your country and the party at home. When you went abroad that was sort of forbidden. You weren’t supposed to criticize your country and also it was also preferable to drop by the embassy or the consulate and tell them you were there. And Bernhard said, when I read his first book translated into Serbian, it was „Frost” I think, some thirty years ago, then they discovered him in Croatia, so, when I first read him I thought: „This is wonderful, you can be angry, you can curse, you can really say what you think if you really know how to say it”. He’s one of my favorites. Not to mention some classics like Kafka or Musil.
Maybe none of us has his own life. Is your own life unconditionally yours.
A very strong novel, very different to Belladonna in style but ultimately equally powerful.
Bibliography.
Daša Drndić's last 6 works of fiction were:
Doppelgänger (2002), translated into English as Doppelgänger ( 2018) by Celia Hawkesworth and SD Curtis
Leica Format (2003) (English 2015), translated into English as Leica Format (2015) by Celia Hawkesworth
Sonnenschein (2007), translated into English as Trieste (2012) by Ellen Elias-Bursać
April u Berlinu (2009), as yet untranslated
Belladonna (2012), translated into English as Belladonna 2017, by Celia Hawkesworth,
E.E.G (2016), translated into English as E.E.G. (2018), by Celia Hawkesworth
“Nothing is crucial to me, but I don’t realise that yet.”
Doppelgänger, by Daša Drndić, contains two stories that are subtlety interlinked. Each emanates an anguish exacerbated by the protagonists’ loneliness. These are not comfortable reads as they challenge the bland acceptance of society’s expectations of how the old and discarded should behave. There is a deep felt sadness that goes unanswered.
The first story, translated by S.D. Curtis, tells of a meeting between two septuagenarians. The characters are introduced with descriptions of the slow decay of their bodies. They wear adult nappies. Their skin is flaccid. They each live alone having once had families. Between sections that detail their histories are police dossiers. They are being surveilled.
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, Artur and Isabella are walking the quiet streets of their small town in Croatia. They are very different in their demeanour and habits but accept each other’s company. They engage in a sex act.
“We’re grown-ups, there’s no sense in equivocating. We should give it a try.”
While out, their flats are searched.
The second story, translated by Celia Hawkesworth, opens on a damp autumn day at a zoo in Belgrade. Printz is watching two neglected rhinos in their enclosure. It is a distressing scene to read. We learn that Printz’s mother died recently after a long illness, and that he helped care for her as her body failed. He is sleeping on a camp bed in his parents’ flat. His younger brother is waiting to inherit their many possessions.
Despite being raised by a wealthy family, Printz carries out acts of socialism. His parents valued their coveted things with which Printz is generous, perhaps attempting to bolster his self-worth. He accepts his ongoing descent in the eyes of society. He has a photographic memory, a wealth of knowledge, but lacks experience of feeling loved.
He remembers with fondness a childhood friend, Maristella, although their relationship emerges as tainted due to his behaviour. It calls into question how he was aware at five years old of the acts he performs on her.
The tale is a slow burner with a disturbing undercurrent. There is much for the reader to consider.
Both stories explore the legacy of Nazism and then Communism. Children cannot choose their parents yet are deeply affected by the inheritance of actions both before and after their birth. The writing has a haunted quality. Changing borders, geographic and familial, leave citizens unmoored.
Complex and at times elusive, the observations and actions so tautly and meticulously described can be unnerving. These are stories that ask the reader to step outside their comfort zone and confront a reality of historic dark deeds and their repercussions.
Doppelgänger, by Daša Drndić, contains two stories that are subtlety interlinked. Each emanates an anguish exacerbated by the protagonists’ loneliness. These are not comfortable reads as they challenge the bland acceptance of society’s expectations of how the old and discarded should behave. There is a deep felt sadness that goes unanswered.
The first story, translated by S.D. Curtis, tells of a meeting between two septuagenarians. The characters are introduced with descriptions of the slow decay of their bodies. They wear adult nappies. Their skin is flaccid. They each live alone having once had families. Between sections that detail their histories are police dossiers. They are being surveilled.
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, Artur and Isabella are walking the quiet streets of their small town in Croatia. They are very different in their demeanour and habits but accept each other’s company. They engage in a sex act.
“We’re grown-ups, there’s no sense in equivocating. We should give it a try.”
While out, their flats are searched.
The second story, translated by Celia Hawkesworth, opens on a damp autumn day at a zoo in Belgrade. Printz is watching two neglected rhinos in their enclosure. It is a distressing scene to read. We learn that Printz’s mother died recently after a long illness, and that he helped care for her as her body failed. He is sleeping on a camp bed in his parents’ flat. His younger brother is waiting to inherit their many possessions.
Despite being raised by a wealthy family, Printz carries out acts of socialism. His parents valued their coveted things with which Printz is generous, perhaps attempting to bolster his self-worth. He accepts his ongoing descent in the eyes of society. He has a photographic memory, a wealth of knowledge, but lacks experience of feeling loved.
He remembers with fondness a childhood friend, Maristella, although their relationship emerges as tainted due to his behaviour. It calls into question how he was aware at five years old of the acts he performs on her.
The tale is a slow burner with a disturbing undercurrent. There is much for the reader to consider.
Both stories explore the legacy of Nazism and then Communism. Children cannot choose their parents yet are deeply affected by the inheritance of actions both before and after their birth. The writing has a haunted quality. Changing borders, geographic and familial, leave citizens unmoored.
Complex and at times elusive, the observations and actions so tautly and meticulously described can be unnerving. These are stories that ask the reader to step outside their comfort zone and confront a reality of historic dark deeds and their repercussions.