The Cut Line

Cultural Endowment of Estonia 2020, Poetry Award

Tartu City Writer Laureate, 2020

August Sang Poetry 2020, Translation Award

In the dog days of an Estonian summer, Liine flees to the countryside to put a conclusive end to her toxic 14-year relationship.

She undergoes every stage of separation in a lone farmstead amid forests. Physical labour 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 practising 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.