The Southern Hemisphere Estonian Book Club (Lõunapoolkera Lugemisklubi) is back on Sunday 8 February, welcoming acclaimed writer Lilli Luuk to Zoom for a warm, thoughtful and very human conversation about her novel Ööema (The Night Mother). Have you read five pages? The whole book? Or the book… five times? Perfect. Join us.
Event details
🗓 Date: Sunday, 8 February 2026
⏰ Time: 6.00 pm Sydney & Melbourne | 🕒 5.00 pm Brisbane | 🕒 3.00 pm Perth | 🕖 8.00 pm New Zealand
💬 Language: Estonian
💻 Where: Zoom Meeting ID: 889 0607 4165 | Passcode: 138283 | Link
📖 The Night Mother (2024) is available in Australia (link here) and in Estonia via Apollo or Rahva Raamat
The Night Mother
Ööema is a powerful, layered novel set in rural Estonia in the years following the Second World War — a time when the fighting may have ended, but fear, loss and impossible choices continued quietly shaping everyday life. At its heart, the novel asks what it means to survive when moral clarity is a luxury, and when silence can feel safer than truth.
Moving between generations and perspectives, the author traces how violence, secrecy and unspoken grief ripple through families long after the original events have passed. The story unfolds in landscapes that feel almost like characters themselves — bogs that hide and protect, forests that witness without judging, homes that hold both care and unbearable tension. Life goes on, children are born, work is done — even as the past presses heavily against the present.
Lilli writes with empathy for characters caught between loyalty and survival, love and fear, protection and betrayal. Women’s experiences sit at the centre of the novel, revealing the emotional and bodily labour required to keep families intact in times when history leaves no good options.
The result is a novel that is deeply human — one that lingers not because of dramatic plot twists, but because of its emotional honesty. Ööema invites readers to sit with discomfort, to acknowledge what has been inherited, and to consider how stories — once finally told — might loosen history’s grip, even if they cannot fully undo it.
More about Lilli Luuk
Lilli Luuk entered Estonian literature in 2017 and has since become one of its most read voices. She is a two-time Friedebert Tuglas Short Story Award winner (for short stories Auk [Hole] and Kolhoosi miss [Collective Farm Miss]). She is also the literary journal Looming annual prize recipient (for short story Mäed [Hills]) and has been named The Writer of the Year (in 2023). Last year, she won the Estonian State Annual Cultural Award for her book Ööema.
Lilli’s first novel Minu venna keha (My Brother’s Body, published in 2022) received major nominations and awards and Ööema, published in 2024, is her second novel — continuing her sharp, compassionate exploration of history’s long shadows. She writes with clarity, courage and a deep feel for how the past lives on in bodies, families and landscapes.
Why join?
This isn’t just about a book. It’s about pausing together, in Estonian, across continents and clocks. Come for the story, stay for the conversation — and for those quiet moments when something lands and stays with you. Come curious, come comfy, come exactly as you are.
👉 Join the Zoom meeting on Sunday, 8 February at 6.00 pm (or your local time) — no registration needed!
Zoom Meeting ID: 889 0607 4165 | Passcode: 138283
Read more
📖 Event Facebook page
📖 Lilli Luuk on Facebook and Instagram
📝 Read about Lilli Luuk and her book in Estonian here. More in English here and here.
📚 Year of the Estonian Book information
Read about our past book club events:
Lõunapoolkera Lugemisklubi met and loved Urmas Vadi | HEIA
Southern Hemisphere Estonian Book Club launches with a literary star – Kristiina Ehin | HEIA
Acknowledgement
This book club event is made possible thanks to the joint contribution and support of the Estonian societies of Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and the Gold Coast. Thank you to Estonian Society of Sydney for information and Andres Truus for creating the amazing images.
