The Line
A line: a common project, a stand. But also a border, separating what’s inside from what’s outside. An open-plan office in a glass building. The keyboard clatter, the smell of coffee.
After a period of being unemployed, Emma has been given a chance. The company produces self-help manuals. It’s about giving people tools. To change. To make them more efficient, better at communicating.
Emma works hard and quickly rises in the ranks of the company. Work consumes more and more of her time. Suddenly there are rumours about cuts. And she, who has always been temporarily employed, knows the necessity of staying on the right side when the sword falls.
The Line is a dark, humorous investigation into work as an idea, ideology and everyday life. When it starts to feel absurd, look up and around you. Recognize anything?
Elise Karlsson (b. 1981) is an author, editor and literary critic. She made her debut in 2007, and has been nominated for several prestigious prizes, inclusing Borås Tidning’s Debutant Prize for Run (2007), and Swedish Radio’s Novel Prize for The Line (2016). Her latest novel, The Border, was published in 2018.
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Sold to: PolandA line: a common project, a stand. But also a border, separating what’s inside from what’s outside. An open-plan office in a glass building. The keyboard clatter, the smell of coffee.
After a period of being unemployed, Emma has been given a chance. The company produces self-help manuals. It’s about giving people tools. To change. To make them more efficient, better at communicating.
Emma works hard and quickly rises in the ranks of the company. Work consumes more and more of her time. Suddenly there are rumours about cuts. And she, who has always been temporarily employed, knows the necessity of staying on the right side when the sword falls.
The Line is a dark, humorous investigation into work as an idea, ideology and everyday life. When it starts to feel absurd, look up and around you. Recognize anything?
