I wanted to write a novel for both young and older readers, a book that could be read at any age. In the end, that book became Matuf, the Wigmaker.
Doina Ruști
This page presents Doina Ruști’s novel Matuf, the Wigmaker, published by Humanitas Junior in 2026. It includes the novel’s plot, excerpts from the book, editions, interviews, meetings with readers, and other events dedicated to the novel.
Bucharest, 18th century.
A wig shop belonging to the mysterious Matuf appears overnight on Lipscani Street. People who enter it come out looking different. Or they disappear. When Zinca, the girl Nane is in love with, vanishes inside the shop, he sets off in search of her. But the moment he crosses the threshold of the wig shop, he finds himself in present-day Bucharest.
Matuf, the Wigmaker is a YA thriller and speculative fantasy in which Phanariot history and the post-AI age meet in a fabulous Bucharest.
Everything begins and ends on Lipscani Street.
Doina Ruști: Balkanism, Femininity, Communes and Demons (interview)
Who will come with me into the mithriad gardens? I know you are thinking about the post-AI age, about the people who will inhabit it. Their lives began long ago, on a winter’s day during the reign of Mavrogheni, when a mysterious, infinite wig shop appeared on Lipscani Street. The people of Bucharest went in merely to have a look, but their encounter with the merchant Matuf left behind strange stories and a longing that everyone still carries today: the desire to reach the mithriad gardens. The rest is adventure, and I invite you to join it, wearing silk boots and armed with wigs unlike anything anyone has ever seen!
Doina Ruști
Dictionary of Symbols in the Work of Mircea Eliade by Doina Ruști
