Sofi Oksanen's "Purge" published in Danish

27.01.2010

The Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen's bestselling novel Purge has been published in Danish under the title "Renselse".

Purge is a chilling drama of two generations of women, set in wartime 1940’s Estonia during the Soviet occupation and in the same country in the 90’s as it grapples with the realities of a new Europe. Narrated through a polyphonic choir of individual voices, Purge tells the suspenseful and dramatic story of Aliide Truu, an old Estonian woman whose hands are soiled with the crimes she committed during the Soviet era, and Zara, a young trafficking victim who in the present has managed to escape and has come to seek shelter at Aliide’s countryside home. As the two women start to approach each other and the links between them are revealed, a tragic and complex family drama of rivalry, lust, and loss that plays out during the worst years of the Soviet occupation of Estonia unfolds.

The novel has won its author Finland’s premier literary award, The Finlandia Award 2008, and is short listed for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2010.

Purge is translated from Finnish by Helena Idström and published by Rosinante.