The Double (and Other Stories)

‘Extraordinary. I was entranced. Takolander’s stories have a remarkable concentration of vision; their images are haunting and powerful, and will remain with me for a long time.’ – Jeremy Chambers
‘Maria Takolander’s stories are written in a bewitching minor key. Haunting and mysterious, this is a collection that you will want to savour, then read all over again.’ – Danielle Wood
‘Fiercely intelligent and idiosyncratic, sometimes shot through with black humour, sometimes pressing down on the reader with the full weight of human horror…Individually, Takolander’s stories can be bleak. But collectively they are thrilling. Slender as this collection may be, it announces the arrival of a considerable talent.’ * Australian *
‘A captivating and slightly uncomfortable series of tales that are in turns frightening, amusing, haunting and reassuring…The settings alternate between the familiar scenes of rural Australia and the more unknown background of Northern Europe, but it is the characters that really shine in this collection…undeniably powerful.’ * Australian Bookseller and Publisher *
‘An intriguing collection of short stories, The Double comprises an unsettling journey into the lives of Takolander’s peculiarly distant and troubled protagonists as they explore the dark recesses of the human condition.’ * Melbourne Review *
‘Takolander’s stories are beautifully melancholy, full of arresting, dream-like sequences and imagery that stay with one long after the final page is turned.’ * Arts Hub *
‘Incisive, economic, imbued with simple depth and glittering with hard truth, The Double is a literary force. Poetic in its brevity, the stories are none the less substantial, speaking of the nature of courage, the damage done by ignoring the past, and human beings’ ability to torture themselves.’ * West Australian *
’[Maria Takolander’s] stories seem like wordscapes that offer panoramic views without shunning fine, sometimes devastating, details. They reverberate with the passage of time, especially those stories that link Australia to northern Europe, to Stalinism…Takolander’s prose has a quite gorgeous directness, a desert-like sparseness, even when—no, especially when—the topic is melancholy or fearsome.’ * Australian Book Review *
‘This debut short-story collection…is eerily beautiful and not for the faint of heart…It’s the kind of book that will unnerve you and keep you up at night.’ – Readings
‘The Double is a compulsively readable book, and Takolander’s prose is fluid and engaging.’ * Blurb Magazine *
‘An intriguing collection of short stories…The esoteric tales explore themes of passion, death, desire and redemption.’ * Sunday Life/ Sun Herald *
‘shot through…brilliantly with humour and satire.’ * Otago Daily Times *
‘The best stories in The Double can be brutal yet remain achingly moving and painfully poignant; there are some outstanding, even breathtaking sentences and scenes in this book. Takolander is fluent in capturing moments of sudden grief, shame, intimacy and melancholy.’ * Sydney Morning Herald *
‘The Double meditates on menace and memory. Takolander has a gift for capturing characters whose alienation or trauma is so bifurcating they become unrecognisable to themselves and each other….The best stories in The Double can be brutal yet remain achingly moving and painfully poignant; there are some outstanding, even breathtaking sentences and scenes in this book…[The Interpretation of Dreams] is a brave, beautifully controlled story full of pathos and disturbance, isolation and rage, and disgust.’ * Saturday Age/Sydney Morning Herald/Canberra Times *
‘One of the best contemporary short story collections I’ve read, Takolander’s fictions are intellectual, dark, strange and often dystopian.’ – Literary Minded
‘Takolander’s angle is the familiar made strange, and her work has a wry quality that echoes early Atwood’s fierce genius…[Her] craft and skill is stunning.’ * Overland *
‘Takolander’s talent for narrating intimate tragedies across age, gender, and time reveals her as a master of the quiet and deeply personal storm…Takolander’s writing along makes this a fascinating and worthwhile read. The elegant bend she gives to horrific, primal debasement is absolute genius.’ * Foreword Reviews *

Maria Takolander is an award-winning Finnish-Australian fiction writer and poet. She is the inaugural winner of the Australian Book Review Elizabeth Jolley short-story prize, and her debut collection of short fiction, The Double (Text 2013), was a finalist for the Melbourne Prize for Literature’s ‘Best New Writing Award’.

Maria is also the author of four books of poetry, the most recent of which, Trigger Warning (UQP 2021), won a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and was shortlisted for an Association for the Study of Australian Literature Gold Medal.

As a public artist, her words can be found at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Melbourne and on bronze plaques in Geelong, where she lives with her husband and son.

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