Herta Mueller wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Herta Mueller wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Oct 09 2009

Romanian-born author Herta Mueller* has won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature. A member of Romania's ethnic German minority Mueller was persecuted for her critical depictions of life behind the Iron Curtain. The Nobel committee honored her for work that "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed."

"I am very surprised and still cannot believe it," Mueller said in a statement released by her publisher in Germany, where she is widely renowned. "I can't say anything more at the moment."

Mueller, 56, made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories titled Niederungen (published in English as Nadirs), depicting the harshness of life in a small, German-speaking village in Romania. It was promptly censored by the communist government.

An uncensored version was smuggled into Germany in 1984, where it was published and devoured by readers. That work was followed by Drückender Tango (Oppressive Tango), but she was eventually prohibited from publishing inside her country for her criticism of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's rule and its feared secret police, the Securitate. Mueller emigrated to Germany with her husband in 1987, two years before Ceausescu was toppled amid the widening communist collapse across eastern Europe.

Mueller, whose father served in the Waffen SS during World War II and whose mother spent five years in a Soviet work camp, is the third European in a row to win the prize and the 10th German, joining Guenter Grass in 1999 and Heinrich Boell in 1972.  She is the 12th woman to win.

"By giving the award to Herta Mueller, who grew up in a German-speaking minority in Romania, (the committee) has recognized an author who refuses to let the inhumane side of life under communism be forgotten," said Michael Krueger, head of Mueller's publisher Hanser Verlag.

Most of Mueller's work is in German, but some works have been translated into English, French and Spanish, including The Passport (Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt), The Land of Green Plums (Herztier), Traveling on One Leg (Reisende auf einem Bein) and The Appointment (Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet).

Mueller's latest novel, Atemschaukel (Swinging Breath) is up for this year's German Book Prize, which will be announced Monday.

*The u in Muller's name has an umlaut over it.  Because many web and email programs cannot recognize ü many sources transliterate the ü into ue - thus Muller becomes Mueller.

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