Praise for The Cut Line

 “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

• By one of Estonia’s greatest prose writers today
• Angry, edgy, fierce, from the first sentence on: “The knife’s long and blunt; it can’t cut.”
• 2020 Cultural Endowment of Estonia Poetry Award
• 2020 Tartu City Writer Laureate
• 2020 August Sang Poetry Translation Award
• Reading A Cut Line is nearly a physical experience as the protagonist works in the garden, reeling after the end of an abusive relationship
• Accessible, intense short chapters and clear structure of poetic fragments with many details, observations, and reflections.
• Focused on the protagonist’s inner turmoil after a breakup, with a permeating sense of dread caused by an expanding military base close by and dying nature around
• As her environment changes, Liine herself undergoes profound changes. Likewise, there is a shift from Liine’s sinister language at the beginning of the book to a clairvoyant, self-determined voice towards the end.
• Pihelgas’s wonderfully poetic and fragmented work traces the fates of a sensitive individual and the endangered community and primeval forest around her.