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She undergoes every stage of separation in a lone farmstead amid forests. Physical labor and gardening help her withstand her ex-partner’s threats, the incredulity of friends and family, and her own anguish. Dread is pervasive in this novel. Set in the near future, it is filled with vivid depictions of the threat of climate change. All around Liine, nature is facing acute drought and heat. No less menacing is the presence of an expanding NATO base close to the cottage at the Russian border. The world’s largest military alliance is practicing for an attack. Explosions and shots ring in the distance while Liine tries to recover from fourteen years of violence. Yet she simply follows the rhythm of nature as summer unfolds. While her environment changes around her, Liine—always in the garden chopping wood, weeding, sowing—undergoes profound transformations, too. The Cut Line is a story of fear, self-blame, grief, numbness, and anger ultimately giving way to hope and healing, joy and lightness.
“Carolina Pihelgas’ second novel, The Cut Line, revolves around the inner life of a young woman who has recently ended an abusive, toxic relationship. The Cut Line is a book about boundaries—personal and natural, spatial and temporal. It is fascinating to see how these boundaries shift and merge.” —Estonian Literary Magazine
“Carolina Pihelgas delves deep, peers to the very bottom, is bold and confident, and never stops halfway.” —Piret Põldver, literary critic
“In less than one hundred pages, Carolina Pihelgas creates a depth that would perhaps not be possible without her poetic language, upon which she builds her rendering of the human soul. With this extraordinary little book, the poet undoubtedly reinforces her position as one of Estonia’s greatest prose writers today.” —Estonian Literary Magazine
"The first book translated into English written by Estonian poet, author, and editor Carolina Pihelgas, The Cut Line is a compact story about Liine, a woman who has just left a toxic relationship after 14 years. As Liine goes through an emotional transformation, the landscape around her shifts in this novel about where to draw the line and how to maintain that line once it’s drawn." —Electric Literature, 15 Translated Novels You Should Read This Winter and Spring
"Raw and deeply human... an honest portrayal of a woman learning, imperfectly and bravely, how to live on her own terms." —Underrated Reads
"The Cut Line is the perfect book for readers of contemporary literary fiction who enjoy writers like Otessa Moshfegh, Olga Tokarczuk, or Elif Batufman, and who pursue literature that is simple and succinct." —Ultramarine Literary Review
Darcy Hurford translates from Swedish, Finnish, and Estonian into English. Originally from England, she is now based in Belgium, where she has been working for around 12 years. She studied modern languages at the University of East Anglia and comparative literature at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. Her translations have appeared in Asymptote and Ellipse Magazine.