08. 10. 09. - 14:00

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08. 10. 09. - 14:00

Romania-born Herta Müller awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

Romanian Times

Romania-born writer Herta Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature today (Thurs), nobelprize.org has announced.

The writer, who was born in Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania in 1953, was awarded the Prize for her writing depicting life under Communism in Romania.

Müller "depicts the landscape of the dispossessed with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose," according to nobelprize.org.

Müller was born on 17 August 1953 in the German-speaking town Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II.

Many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including Müller's mother, who spent five years in a work camp in present-day Ukraine. Many years later, in "Atemschaukel" (2009), Müller was to depict the exile of German Romanians in the Soviet Union.

From 1973 to 1976, Müller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timişoara (Temeswar). During that period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who, in opposition to Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, sought freedom of speech.

After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, she was harassed by Securitate.

Müller made her debut with the collection of short stories "Niederungen" (1982), which was censored in Romania. Two years later, she published the uncensored version in Germany and, in the same year, "Drückender Tango" in Romania. In those two works, Müller depicts life in a small, German-speaking village and the corruption, intolerance and repression to be found there.

The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while the German press received them very positively. Because Müller had publicly criticized the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country. In 1987, Müller emigrated together with her husband, author Richard Wagner.

The novels "Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger" (1992), "Herztier" (1994), "The Land of Green Plums" 1996) and "Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet" (1997) and "The Appointment" (2001) give, with chiselled details, a portrait of daily life in a stagnant dictatorship.

Müller has given guest lectures at universities, colleges and other venues in Paderborn, Warwick, Hamburg, Swansea, Gainsville (Florida), Kassel, Göttingen, Tübingen and Zürich among other places. She lives in Berlin. Since 1995, she has served as a member of Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt.

French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2008.

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