The Nobel Prize in Literature 2009 for Herta Müller

Herta Müller (born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet and essayist noted for her works depicting the harsh conditions of life in Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceauşescu regime, the history of the Germans in the Banat (and more broadly, Transylvania), and the persecution of Romanian ethnic Germans by Stalinist Soviet occupying forces in Romania and the Soviet-imposed communist regime of Romania.

Müller has been an internationally-known author since the early 1990s, and her works have been translated into more than 20 languages.[2][3] She has received over 20 awards, including the 1994 Kleist Prize, the 1995 Aristeion Prize, the 1998 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the 2009 Franz Werfel Human Rights Award. On 8 October 2009 it was announced that she had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature.


Life and career
Müller was born in Niţchidorf (German: Nitzkydorf), a historically German-speaking village in the Romanian Banat in western Romania. The daughter of Banat Swabian farmers, her family was part of Romania's German minority. Her grandfather had been a wealthy farmer and merchant. Her father served in the Waffen SS[4] and her mother survived five years in a Gulag forced labour camp in the Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) after World War II,[5] sharing the fate of around 100,000 ethnic Germans deported from Romania to forced labor camps in the Soviet Union[6]. Her native language is German; only in grammar school did she learn Romanian.[7] She was a student of German studies and Romanian literature at the Timişoara University.

In 1976, Müller began working as a translator for an engineering factory, but was dismissed in 1979 for her refusal to cooperate with the Securitate, the Communist regime's secret police. After her dismissal she initially earned a living by teaching kindergarten and giving private German lessons. Her first book, Niederungen (Nadirs), was published in Romania in German in 1982, in a state-censored version. The book was about a child's view of the German-cultural Banat.[8] Müller was a member of Aktionsgruppe Banat, a group of German-speaking writers in Romania who supported freedom of speech over the censorship they faced under Ceauşescu's government, and her works, including The Land of Green Plums, deal with these issues.[9][10]. Radu Tinu, the Securitate officer in charge of her case, denies that she ever suffered any persecutions.[11], a claim that is opposed by Müller's own version of her (ongoing) persecution in an article in the German weekly Die Zeit in July 2009 [12].

After being refused permission to emigrate to West Germany in 1985, Müller was finally allowed to leave along with her husband, novelist Richard Wagner, in 1987, and they settled in West Berlin, where they still live.[13] In the following years she accepted lectureships at universities in Germany and abroad. Müller was elected to membership in the German Academy for Writing and Poetry in 1995, and other honorary positions followed. In 1997 she withdrew from the PEN centre of Germany in protest of its merger with the former German Democratic Republic branch. In July 2008, Müller sent a critical open letter to Horia-Roman Patapievici, president of the Romanian Cultural Institute in reaction to the moral and financial support given by the institute to two former informants of the Securitate participating at the Romanian-German Summer School.[14]

In 2009, her novel Everything I Possess I Carry With Me (German: Atemschaukel) was nominated for the German Book Prize (Deutscher Buchpreis) but the prize was won by Kathrin Schmidt's book Du stirbst nicht. In this book, Müller describes the journey of a young man to a gulag in the Soviet Union as an example of the fate of the German population in Transylvania after World War II. It was inspired by the experience of poet Oskar Pastior, whose oral memories she had made notes of, but also by what happened to her own mother.

Critic Denis Scheck described visiting Müller at her home in Berlin and seeing that her working desk contained a drawer full of single letters cut from a newspaper she had entirely destroyed. Realising that she used the letters "to recombine her own literary texts", he felt he had "entered the workshop of a true poet".[15]

The Swedish Academy awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature to Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.".[4] The spokesman of the Swedish Academy compared Müllers style and her use of German as a minority language with Franz Kafka and pointed out the influence of Kafka on Müller. The award coincided with the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism. Michael Krüger, head of Müller's publishing house, stated: "By giving the award to Herta Müller, 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"[16]

She received the Franz Werfel Human Rights Award in the Frankfurt Paulskirche in November 2009, for her novel Everything I Possess I Carry With Me. The award was presented by Erika Steinbach. Ten survivors of Soviet concentration camps were present at the ceremony.[17]

Influences

Although Müller has not publicly spoken at length on specific people or books that have influenced her on a literary level, she has attributed her roots to other sources, the most prominent of these being her university studies in German and Romanian literature. When comparing the two languages, she noted that a simple concept such as a falling star can be interpreted so differently. "We’re not only speaking about different words, but about different worlds. [For example] Romanians see a falling star and say that someone has died, with the Germans you make a wish when you see the falling star." Müller also went on to say that Romanian folk music holds a special place in her heart. "When I first heard Maria Tanase she sounded incredible to me, it was for the first time that I really felt what folklore meant. Romanian folk music is connected to existence in a very meaningful way." [18]

Another strong source of influence has been Müller's husband, Richard Wagner.[citation needed] Their lives hold remarkable parallels: both grew up in Romania as members of the Banat Swabian ethnic group and enrolled in German and Romanian literary studies at Timişoara University. Upon graduating, they worked as German language teachers, and were members of Aktionsgruppe Banat, a literary society that fought for freedom of speech. Like his wife, Wagner is also a published novelist and essayist.

Müller's involvement with Aktionsgruppe Banat has also influenced the boldness with which she writes,[citation needed] despite the threats and trouble generated by the Romanian secret police. Although her books are fictional, they are based on real people and experiences. Her 1996 novel, The Land of Green Plums was written after the deaths of two friends, in which Müller suspected the involvement of the secret police, and one of its characters was based on a close friend from Aktionsgruppe Banat.[19]

Works

Müller signing one of her books in September 2009Niederungen, short stories, censored version published in Bucharest, 1982. Uncensored version published in Germany 1984. Published in English as Nadirs in 1999 by the University of Nebraska Press.[20]
Drückender Tango ("Oppressive Tango"), stories, Bucharest, 1984
Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt, Berlin, 1986. Published in English as The Passport, Serpent's Tail, 1989 ISBN 9781852421397
Barfüßiger Februar ("Barefoot February"), Berlin, 1987
The Absolute Wasteman novella, Berlin, 1987
Reisende auf einem Bein, Berlin, 1989. Published in English as Traveling on One Leg, Hydra Books/Northwestern University Press, 1998.[21]
Wie Wahrnehmung sich erfindet ("How Perception Invents Itself"), Paderborn, 1990
Der Teufel sitzt im Spiegel ("The Devil is Sitting in the Mirror"), Berlin, 1991
Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger ("Even Back Then, the Fox Was the Hunter"), Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1992

Eine warme Kartoffel ist ein warmes Bett ("A Warm Potato Is a Warm Bed"), Hamburg, 1992
Der Wächter nimmt seinen Kamm ("The Guard Takes His Comb"), Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1993
Angekommen wie nicht da ("Arrived As If Not There"), Lichtenfels, 1994
Herztier, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1994. Published in an English translation by Michael Hofmann as The Land of Green Plums, Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1996[22]
Hunger und Seide ("Hunger and Silk"), essays, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1995
In der Falle ("In a Trap"), Göttingen 1996
Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1997. Published in English as The Appointment, Metropolitan Books/Picador, New York/London, 2001
Der fremde Blick oder das Leben ist ein Furz in der Laterne ("The Foreign View, or Life Is a Fart in a Lantern"), Göttingen, 1999
Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame ("A Lady Lives in the Hair Knot"), poetry, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2000
Heimat ist das, was gesprochen wird ("Home Is What Is Spoken There"), Blieskastel, 2001
A good person is worth as much as a piece of bread, foreword published in Kent Klich's Children of Ceausescu by Journal, 2001 and Umbrage Editions, 2001. Published in Swedish as En god människa är lika mycket värd som ett stycke bröd in Kent Klich's Ceausescu's barn by Journal, 2001
Der König verneigt sich und tötet ("The King Bows and Kills"), essays, Munich (and elsewhere), 2003
Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen ("The Pale Gentlemen with their Espresso Cups"), Munich (and elsewhere), 2005
Este sau nu este Ion ("Is He or Isn't He Ion"), collage-poetry written and published in Romanian, Iaşi, Polirom, 2005
Atemschaukel, Munich, 2009. Published in English as Everything I Possess I Carry With Me, Granta/ Metropolitan Books, 2009.[23]
[edit] Editor
Theodor Kramer: Die Wahrheit ist, man hat mir nichts getan ("The Truth Is No One Did Anything to Me"), Vienna 1999
Die Handtasche ("The Purse"), Künzelsau 2001
Wenn die Katze ein Pferd wäre, könnte man durch die Bäume reiten ("If the Cat Were a Horse, You Could Ride Through the Trees"), Künzelsau 2001
[edit] Filmography
1993 : Vulpe – vânător (Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger), directed by Stere Gulea, starring Oana Pellea, Dorel Vişan, George Alexandru etc.
[edit] Awards
1981 Adam-Müller-Guttenbrunn Sponsored Prize the Temeswar Literature Circle
1984 Aspekte Literature Prize
1985 Rauris Literature Prize
1985 Encouragement Prize of the Literature Award of Bremen
1987 Ricarda-Huch Prize of Darmstadt
1989 Marieluise-Fleißer Prize of Ingolstadt
1989 German Language Prize, together with Gerhardt Csejka, Helmuth Frauendorfer, Klaus Hensel, Johann Lippet, Werner Söllner, William Totok, Richard Wagner
1990 Roswitha Medal of Knowledge of Bad Gandersheim
1991 Kranichsteiner Literature Prize
1993 Critical Prize for Literature
1994 Kleist Prize
1995 Aristeion Prize
1995/96 City-writer of Frankfurt-Bergen-Enkheim
1997 Literature Prize of Graz
1998 Ida-Dehmel Literature Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for The Land of Green Plums
2001 Cicero Speaker Prize
2002 Carl-Zuckmayer-Medaille of Rhineland-Palatinate
2003 Joseph-Breitbach Prize (together with Christoph Meckel and Harald Weinrich)
2004 Literature Prize of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
2005 Berlin Literature Prize
2006 Würth Prize for European Literature und Walter-Hasenclever Literature Prize
2009 Franz Werfel Human Rights Award, in particular for her novel Everything I Possess I Carry With Me[24]
2009 Nobel Prize in Literature
2010 Hoffmann von Fallersleben Prize