Lost Fingers

Rights

Rights sold: Estonian, Polish

Awards

Shortlisted for Estonia's Cultural Endowment Annual Award for Literature (Best Book of Fiction) 2020

Best designed Estonian books of 2020
Special prize of Rahva Raamat 2020

About the Book

Lost Fingers is a collection of thirteen short stories – at once comic and tragic – that deal with insecurity and the fear of being second-rate, with the desire to fit in with the surrounding world. Raud gives a voice to colourful and thoroughly human characters with their quirks, worries, and dreams: among others there is a literature teacher who falls in love with an opera singer afraid of mice, a dearly departed writing letters from beyond the grave and an architect obsessed with the toe of Michelangelo’s David. All of them act according to the best of their ability yet succeed at the expense of something important. Despite a sorrowful undertone Raud’s sharp sense of the absurd and irony-tinged compassion leave room for light-heartedness and the hope that even tomorrow things might take a turn for the better.

"A series of unfortunate stories in a handsome illustrated edition. Between these covers there appears one of my all-time favourites in the genre of fictional correspondences: “Letters from beyond the grave"".
Indrek Koff, Kultuur ERR

"Lost Fingers contains a lot of thought-provoking moments, albeit humour as well, but this is somewhat a humour through tears."
Maia Tammjärv, Gogol

"13 first-person stories filled with symbols, imagery, and allegory. An astonishing ability of transformation from woman to man, from young to old. The author’s own illustrations give her words a pleasing visual dimension."
Reet Weidebaum, Kultuur ERR