Herta Mller Wins Nobel Prize in Literature
Herta Muller, the Romanian-born German novelist who has written widely about the harsh conditions and oppression of dictatorship in her native country, won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday.
Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy said Muller had an ability to "depict the landscape of the dispossessed" and writes "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose."
Ms. Muller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 fleeing persecution and censorship in Romania. She is the first German writer to win the Nobel Prize since Gunter Grass in 1999 according to The New York Times. Only four of her works have been translated into English, including the novels "The Passport," "The Land of Green Plums" and "The Appointment."
Ms. Muller had been honored because of her "very, very distinct special language, on the one hand, and on the other hand she has really a story to tell about growing up in a dictatorship . . . and growing up as a stranger in your own family," says the Swedish Academy.
Mueller will receive a prize of 10 million Swedish Kronor ($1.4 million) at the awards ceremony in Stockholm in December.