Dubravka Ugresic, "Lend Me Your Character" (trans. Celia Hawkesworth) (Croatia)

It’s December 2. Welcome back to the 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar—a literary globetrotting adventure featuring 25 stories from 25 different countries.

Our editor, Alberto Manguel, is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

Here he is on Dubravka Ugresic’s story, “Lend Me Your Character”:

The Yugoslav writer Dubravka Ugresic (she will not accept the nationality foisted on her after the partition of the country) is a kind of Jane Austen for the twenty-first century, combing acerbic social humour with knowing winks to the tricks of the literary trade. Her story of a typist who lives with her elderly aunt and who feels herself reflected in chick-lit and romantic television series shows Ugresic’s keen acerbic eye for our foibles. I love her cool, sardonic humour that bit by bit pulls down our sober preconceptions of good behaviour.

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What did you think of today's story? Use the hashtag #ssac2021 on Twitter and Instagram to check in with your fellow advent calendarians. And check back tomorrow for commentary on the next story!