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Herta Mueller wins Nobel literature prize
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-09 08:11
STOCKHOLM: Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature yesterday, honored for work that "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed," the Swedish Academy said. The 56-year-old author, who emigrated to Germany from Romania in 1987, made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories titled Niederungen, or Lowlands in English, which was promptly censored by her government. In 1984 an uncensored version was smuggled to Germany where it was published and her work depicting life in a small, German-speaking village in Romania was devoured by readers there. That work was followed by Oppressive Tango in Romania. "The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively," the Academy said. "Because Mueller had publicly criticized the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country." In 1987 she emigrated to Germany with her husband two years before dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled from power. Mueller's parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania and father served in the Waffen SS during World War II. After the war ended, many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including her mother, who spent five years in a work camp in what is now Ukraine. Most of her works in German, but some works have been translated into English, French and Spanish, including The Passport, The Land of Green Plums, Traveling on One Leg and The Appointment. Mueller has given guest lectures at universities, colleges and other venues in Paderborn, Warwick, Hamburg, Swansea, Gainsville (Florida), Kassel, Gottingen, Tubingen and Zurich among other places. She lives in Berlin. Since 1995 she has served as a member of Deutsche Akademie fur Sprache und Dichtung, in Darmstadt." Mueller is the 12th woman to win the literature prize. Recent female winners include Austria's Elfriede Jelinek in 2004 and British writer Doris Lessing in 2007. The award includes a $1.4 million prize and will be handed out on December 10. AP - Reuters
 (China Daily 10/09/2009 page12) |
