This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature goes to the German author Herta Müller. The 56-year-old author was born in Romania as a member of the German minority. She writes novels, poems and essays, some of them about Romania under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. The Nobel Committee in Stockholm praises Ms Müller for her ability to depict “the landscape of the dispossessed”.

Herta Müller writes in German. Her first book came out in Romania in 1982: Niederungen, a collection of short stories, an uncensored version of which was eventually published in Germany in 1984. The book was published in English as Nadirs.

A number of her books have been published in other languages, including Hartedier (published in English as The Land of Green Plums ), Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt, (published in English as The Passport) and Heute wäre ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (published in English as The Appointment).

Simple
The Dutch translator of the books, Ria van Hengel, is pleased Herta Müller is to be awarded the prize. "She is a very special writer with a style unlike anyone else’s. She uses short sentences making her writing look very simple, but it has a lot of meaning."

Her Dutch publisher Eric Visser from publishing house De Geus predicted Ms Müller would win the prize in the morning before the Swedish Academy announced it.

"When you read one of her books you are unable to read any other book for a while. You have to sit down and take a bit of time because you can think about every single sentence. Her books are so beautiful."

Gripping
Ria van Hengel is now finishing off a translation of Herta van Müller’s most recent book, Atemschaukel, in which she describes life in the Russian work camps, where German Romanians were sent to work under abominable conditions after the Second World War.

"What do political and social conditions do to people? It is gripping to read in this book how people treat each other in these camps and what happens to them," says the translator. "And what happens to them when they return home. That is probably the best part of the book: the last 30 to 40 pages are about how the camp determines the rest of protagonist’ s life."

The Nobel prize consists of a medal and a certificate, as well as prize money of around a million euros. Herta Müller will receive the prize on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel.

* RNW translation (nc)

Photo: flickr / kapa*