Herta Mueller wins Nobel Literature Prize
Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature Thursday, 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 then-communist 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 amid the widening communist collapse across eastern Europe.
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 is the 12th woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Recent female winners include Austria's Elfriede Jelinek in 2004 and British writer Doris Lessing in 2007.
The prize includes a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) prize and will be handed out Dec. 10 in the Swedish capital.
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The Swedish Academy receives hundreds of literature nominations every year, whittled down to a shortlist of five names by May. Those authors are studied carefully before a winner is selected in a majority vote.
Known in Swedish as "De Aderton" - the Eighteen - the academy members are Swedish writers, book critics, linguists and literature professors.
Right now there are only 15 active members. One seat is vacant and two members have boycotted meetings since the 1990s because of internal disputes, including over whether the academy should condemn death threats against British writer Salman Rushdie.
Peter Englund, the academy's permanent secretary, said there usually is animated discussion between academy members before the vote, though they try to keep things civil.
"There are never sort of cutthroat debates and people getting really angry and storming out of the room," he said.
Winners of the Nobel Prize in literature since 1960:
- 2009: Herta Mueller, Germany.
- 2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, France.
- 2007: Doris Lessing, Britain.
- 2006: Orhan Pamuk, Turkey.
- 2005: Harold Pinter, Britain.
- 2004: Elfriede Jelinek, Austria.
- 2003: J.M. Coetzee, South Africa.
- 2002: Imre Kertesz, Hungary.
- 2001: V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad-born Briton.
- 2000: Gao Xingjian, Chinese-born French.
- 1999: Guenter Grass, Germany.
- 1998: Jose Saramago, Portugal.
- 1997: Dario Fo, Italy.
- 1996: Wislawa Szymborska, Poland.
- 1995: Seamus Heaney, Ireland.
- 1994: Kenzaburo Oe, Japan.
- 1993: Toni Morrison, United States.
- 1992: Derek Walcott, St. Lucia.
- 1991: Nadine Gordimer, South Africa.
- 1990: Octavio Paz, Mexico.
- 1989: Camilo Jose Cela, Spain.
- 1988: Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt.
- 1987: Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born American.
- 1986: Wole Soyinka, Nigeria.
- 1985: Claude Simon, France.
- 1984: Jaroslav Seifert, Czechoslovakia.
- 1983: William Golding, Britain.
- 1982: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia.
- 1981: Elias Canetti, Bulgarian-born Briton.
- 1980: Czeslaw Milosz, Polish-born American.
- 1979: Odysseus Elytis, Greece.
- 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-born American.
- 1977: Vicente Aleixandre, Spain.
- 1976: Saul Bellow, Canadian-born American.
- 1975: Eugenio Montale, Italy.
- 1974: Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, Sweden.
- 1973: Patrick White, British-born Australian.
- 1972: Heinrich Boell, West Germany.
- 1971: Pablo Neruda, Chile.
- 1970: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russia.
- 1969: Samuel Beckett, Ireland.
- 1968: Yasunari Kawabata, Japan.
- 1967: Miguel A. Asturias, Guatemala.
- 1966: Shmuel Y. Agnon, Polish-born Israeli, and Nelly Sachs,
German-born Swede.
- 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov, Russia.
- 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre, France (declined award).
- 1963: Giorgos Seferis, Turkish-born Greek.
- 1962: John Steinbeck, United States.
- 1961: Ivo Andric, Yugoslavia.
- 1960: Saint-John Perse, Guadeloupe-born French.