Dublin Literary Award Logo
2012 Longlist

Purge

artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Deep in an Estonian forest, two women, one young, one old, are hiding. Zara is a prostitute and a murderer, on the run from brutal captors – men who know how to punish a woman. Aliide offers refuge but not safety: she has her own criminal secrets – traitorous crimes of passion and revenge committed long ago, during the country’s brutal Soviet years. Both women have survived lives of abuse. But this time their survival depends on revealing the one thing history has taught them to keep safely hidden: the truth. A haunting, intimate and gripping story of suspicion, betrayal and retribution against a backdrop of Soviet oppression and European war.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Sofi
Oksanen

Sofi Oksanen is a Finnish-Estonian novelist and playwright. She has received numerous prizes for her work, including the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, the Prix Femina, the Budapest Grand Prize, the European Book Prize, and the Nordic Council Literature Prize. She lives in Helsinki.

Sofi Oksanen is a Finnish-Estonian novelist and playwright. She has received numerous prizes for her work, including the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, the Prix Femina, the Budapest Grand Prize, the European Book Prize, and the Nordic Council Literature Prize. She lives in Helsinki.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Lola
Rogers

Lola Rogers is a literary translator living in Seattle. She has translated dozens of novels, short stories, poems, essays, comics, and children’s books. She is the recipient of two English PEN Awards and in 2019 was a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, for a translation of The Death of Orvar Klein, by Daniel Katz. Her translation of Johanna Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun was awarded the 2017 Prometheus Prize. Lola serves as a translation mentor for FILI Finnish Literature Exchange and is a founding member of the Finnish-English Literary Translation Cooperative.

Lola Rogers is a literary translator living in Seattle. She has translated dozens of novels, short stories, poems, essays, comics, and children’s books. She is the recipient of two English PEN Awards and in 2019 was a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, for a translation of The Death of Orvar Klein, by Daniel Katz. Her translation of Johanna Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun was awarded the 2017 Prometheus Prize. Lola serves as a translation mentor for FILI Finnish Literature Exchange and is a founding member of the Finnish-English Literary Translation Cooperative.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

A breathtaking tale of two women, forced to confront their own traumatic pasts, that mingles both with the personal history of their families and the political history of Estonia – Gripping look at what people do to survive, and what they do for love – framed by Estonian history and painful memories – A brilliantly written, dark and heartbreaking, but also optimistic novel about power and loss, about Estonia since World War 2, and two women with dark secrets. Purge is a masterpiece – A very moving novel with historical references on Estonia’s recent history, with literary values and a well-knit plot through the stories of two memorable women’s characters – Purge captures both the tragic consequences of one of Europe’s biggest conflicts and the universal horrors that war inflicts on women – Purge is a story mostly about women, about their feminine strength and their feminine tragedies. It is a story about a toxic love, jealousy, social condemnation and lack of fulfilment. It is a story of people entangled in history. The human dramas described in the novel, with the difficult history of 20th century Estonia in the background, are universal in nature – The history of Estonia represented by two women: two generations, two political systems, violence and the struggle to survive. Narrated through a polyphonic choir of individual voices, suspenseful and dramatic.

RELATED FEATURES

Video November 1 2024

2024 Dublin Literary Award Ceremony

2024 Dublin Literary Award Ceremony with broadcaster Rick O'Shea. Livestreamed from the International Literature Festival Dublin in Merrion Square Park on Thursday 23rd May 2024.
Audio June 11 2024

All About Books Podcast Features the 2024 Dublin Literary Award

Dublin City FM podcaster Katy Conneely spotlights the award.
Video June 5 2024

2024 Winners Mircea Cărtărescu & Sean Cotter in conversation

with Journalist Alex Clarke at the International Literature Festival Dublin.
Video May 31 2024

2024 Winner Ceremony Highlights

Author Mircea Cărtărescu & translator Sean Cotter presented with the DLA Award at ILFD.

STAY CONNECTED

Stay in touch and sign up to our newsletter to receive all the latest news and updates on the Dublin Literary Award.