Herta Muller
Herta Muller
Herta Mülleris a Romanian-born German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf, Timiș County in Romania, her native language is German. Since the early 1990s she has been internationally established, and her works have been translated into more than twenty languages...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 August 1953
CountryGermany
once-upon-a-time luck blame
Once upon a time they had some bad luck, and they blame everything on that.
home sleep long
Some people speak and sing and walk and sit and sleep and silence their homesickness, for a long time, and to no avail. Some say that over time homesickness loses its specific content, that it starts to smolder and only then becomes all-consuming, because it’s no longer focused on a concrete home. I am one of the people who say that.
needs combat finished
To combat death you don't need much of a life, just one that isn't yet finished.
writing looks doe
Writing itself does not know what it looks like while one is doing it, only when it's finished.
way happenings written
I have always written only for myself - to clarify things, to clarify things with myself, to understand in an inner way what is actually happening.
steps action single-step
Who can take a single step with his head?
writing hands silent
What can't be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand.
eye towns stones
I wanted to get out of our thimble of a town, where every stone had eyes.
together different language
Language is so different from life. How am I supposed to fit the one into the other? How can I bring them together?
sick effort world
What can be said about chronic hunger. Perhaps that there's a hunger that can make you sick with hunger. That it comes in addition to the hunger you already feel. That there is a hunger which is always new, which grows insatiably, which pounces on the never-ending old hunger that already took such effort to tame. How can you face the world if all you can say about yourself is that you're hungry.
wells invitations
In Romanian society, I am not particularly well-liked. I don't often receive invitations.
risk spy might
If you live with death threats, you need friends. So you have to risk that they might spy on you.
suffering doe humans
Suffering doesn't improve human beings, does it?
long silence littles
I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.