The legendary Estonian marshlands, fertile ground for mangroves and folklore, are the strangely comforting background to Lilli Luuk’s Night Mother ( Ööema ), shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL), where they serve as a wartime refuge, childhood landscape, and the keeper of a family secret buried for half a century.

The bog, Luuk said in a conversation with indianexpress.com , “has historically always given shelter to people in Estonia, for centuries, in different wars.”

Luuk grew up in central Estonia, where bogs are everywhere, and by her estimate, make up around 20 per cent of the country’s landscape. “It is a very magical place. You can always find silence there, but so many different animals and birds live there. It’s a very beautiful place.”

“After the Second World War, Estonian villages were almost empty of men,” she said.…