The novel was adapted from the author's debut play of the same name, *Purge* (*Puhdistus*), which premiered at the Finnish National Theatre in 2007; the novel itself was published in 2008. It garnered nine Finnish awards—including the Finnish Book Club’s Grand Prize, the Finlandia Prize, and the Nordic Council Literature Prize—as well as four other honors, such as the European Book Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Prix Médicis, the International Dublin Literary Award, and the British Green Carnation Prize. The novel was adapted into a Finnish film in 2012. *The Times* described Oksanen as a "literary phenomenon," noting that *Purge* is a literary masterpiece that does not easily loosen its grip on the reader's imagination.
It is a powerful, haunting, and deeply emotional novel—an experience that leaves an indelible mark. The story unfolds across two distinct eras: the period of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic and the time following Estonia's independence from the Soviet Union. It begins under highly mysterious circumstances during the latter period, when the protagonist—an elderly woman—discovers a young girl collapsed outside her home in a deserted village. The girl is barefoot, and her clothes are torn and filthy. Although the protagonist knows neither the girl's identity nor the cause of her plight, she decides to take her in. As they live together, both harbor secrets about their pasts that neither can bring herself to share with the other—until a profound revelation at the novel's conclusion lays everything bare. How will they react? And why does each of them choose this particular end? The author skillfully blends narrative, poetry, internal monologue, historical events, diary entries, and political reports into a single novel about loss, dignity, the struggle for survival, a dark past, and sins that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven. She also focuses on the brutality of Soviet Russian rule and Estonia’s suffering under the Socialist Republic—a period she characterizes as an "occupation." When the novel won the 2010 Nordic Council Literature Prize, the selection committee praised it, deeming its themes "universal and timeless," and noting that subjects such as love, deceit, power, and powerlessness were rendered through highly compelling language and extraordinary, precise description.