Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen

Born in Romania in 1953, Herta Müller lost her job as a teacher and suffered repeated threats after refusing to cooperate with Ceausescu's Secret Police. She succeeded in emigrating in 1987 and now lives in Berlin. The recipient of the European Literature Prize, she has also won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for her previous show more novel, The Land of Green Plums. Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2009. (Publisher Provided) Herta Müller was born in Nitzkydorf, Romania on August 17, 1953 to German parents. She studied German studies and Romanian literature at Timisoara University. While there, she became part of the Aktionsgruppe Banat, a group of idealistic Romanian-German writers seeking freedom of expression under the Ceaucescu dictatorship. After graduation, she worked as a translator in a machine factory, but was fired for refusing to cooperate with the secret police. Her first short story collection, Niederungen, was published in 1982 in a censored form. She immigrated to West Germany in 1987. She is a novelist, poet and essayist whose works depict the harsh conditions of life in Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceausescu regime. Her works include Herztier or The Land of Green Plums; The Appointment; Der Fuchs War Damals Schon der Jäger or The Passport; and Atemschaukel or Everything I Possess I Carry with Me. She has won numerous awards including the Marieluise-Fleißer Prize in 1990, the Kranichsteiner Literary Prize in 1991, the Kleist Prize in 1994, and the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. (Bowker Author Biography) show less