Drndic is often described as a blend of Beckett (for the bleakness and rhythms), W.G. Sebald (the reliance on photographs and interest in historical amnesia) and Thomas Bernhard (first-rate misanthropy), but these sorts of comparisons do nothing to convey the singular experience of reading her work ... This writer does not tell stories; she had flagrant contempt for them — those cozy bourgeois tchotchkes that belonged to a safer time, when retreat from the political was permissible. Her books are contraptions intended to produce a series of psychological and somatic responses in her readers. In short: panic, pity, shame, nausea, exhilaration — and then, the bewildering desire to experience these very emotions again ... These are not books to be read but endured. I resumed all my old vices to survive them, and adopted a few new ones. I developed warm, fraternal feelings for Job ... Drndic’s fondness for commas gives her sentences their peculiar gasping quality. The characters choke on what they cannot, will not, say.

...the Croatian visionary Dasa Drndic is only now receiving the recognition she deserves ... Doppelgänger, a boldly virtuosic novella in two parts, mirroring the realities of Croatia and Serbia, sees Drndic delighting in Beckettian high art. Described by her as 'my ugly little book' it was her personal favourite ... More than any of Drndic’s wonderful collage, archival, semi-autobiographical narratives thus far translated, it is the brief, if immense, Doppelgänger that may surprise even her established readers ... Doppelgänger, a book of the year, will seduce.

Summary and examples give only the roughest idea of everything Drndić does in these two tales. They are remarkable pieces of writing, simple and straightforward in some ways -- reading easily and smoothly -- yet so complexly and variously spun and woven, constantly shifting tone, approach, and perspective. They capture both near-present-day Croatia, as well as taking in huge swathes of Yugoslavian history and the crimes of the Nazis leading up to and into the Second World War, and all the weight of history on individuals who lived through some of these experiences and times. Incredibly dark, there's also a great lightness to the stories; they're not weighed down by what grimness they seem to have, and though not really funny there's a comic touch and a well-captured sense of absurdities of human existence. It's hard or impossible to describe and convey everything Drndić does -- which is, of course, why you should read it. This is remarkable writing, and this is a very, very fine twinned multi-faceted work. It's hard or impossible to describe and convey everything Drndić does -- which is, of course, why you should read it. This is remarkable writing, and this is a very, very fine twinned multi-faceted work.

Doppelgänger reads as a shadow companion to E.E.G. – its double and opposite. Drndić called it 'this ugly little book of mine', adding 'But it’s my favourite'. Although less challenging than E.E.G it is the more shocking ... Aware that cancer would take her, Drndić brought her characters to their ends 'in a world in its death throes'. Her incisive skill and radical style render potentially grim reading compulsive. She was a voice of – and for – our times.

...Doppelgänger...deploys many of the same transgressive modes – digressive insertions; lists; Bernhardian riffs of reminiscence and rumination; the mingling of memory and imagination – but the narrative is tightly controlled and fully realised, grounded in memorable concrete detail ... Many of the ideas so forcefully and directly articulated in E.E.G. appear in this earlier novel, but here they are organically embedded in a fictional world. Fragmented but not disjointed, Beckettian as well as Bernhardian, Doppelgänger is complex, dark and funny: a strange gem.

Comprising Artur and Isabella and Pupi, this slim volume distills Daša Drndić’s trademark themes into a bleak but haunting requiem for the soul’s death in the wake of postmodernity. In these subtly linked stories, memory bleeds past into present as three clear-eyed protagonists, distanced from their truest selves, approach the void ... strategically braided narrative strategies—stream of consciousness, dialogue, and a seemingly omniscient voice—produce a Kafkaesque humor that highlights the sterility of this brave new world.

Drndić’s pair of unusual, slightly connected novellas...explores the depths of loneliness in post-Soviet Croatia ... The second, longer work, Pupi is more ambitious and less comprehensible, the action moving back and forth through time ... The bleakness can be overwhelming, but this volume has much to offer, with surprising links between the two stories and insights into the ravages of time and mental illness. These two novellas are a testament to Drndić’s considerable talents.

An elderly artist meets an elderly dandy in the late Croatian writer Drndić’s...brief but potent novel, and the rest is history‚ with all its inevitable tragedy ... Pensive and ponderous: a work of continental gloom that promises that no one gets out of here alive.