Knut is an adult man who lives under the legal guardianship of the farmer Gunnar and his wife Sofia. Also resident at the farm is the couple’s son Jon, and Jon’s son Jacob. Sofia is caring towards Knut, but his relationship to the others on the farm is strained. Knut has grown up with his mother in a cabin nearby, but he is not a part of the family.

On the farm they grow strawberry and carrot, and workers from Lithuania and Vietnam help out during the harvest. But underneath there is a simmering conflict: Jon is planning to transform the property into a golf course, since the farm has stopped being profitable.

Knut has trouble making himself understood and understanding what is expected of him, but he unusually sensitive to everything that lives in the forest; when he is with animals, birds and plants, conversation flows more easily than when he is with people.

Written in an inventive, poetic prose, They’re Cutting Down Trees offers a strange, fascinating literary universe, where nature is at the center of the story.