Herta Mueller wins 2009 Nobel literature prize

[jeffbr]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gn-_m0gOLDlyXymX2CJHcV5HexsgD9B6SQTO1

STOCKHOLM — 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...

[Lancer]

1. This is going to sound petty and childish,

and I do recognize the fact that the field from which the Nobel Prize committee chooses its winners is the world, not just the good ol' U.S. of A. There's also nothing wrong with shining a light on authors who are not well known in the Western world. But apart from Harold Pinter (2005), V. S. Naipul (2001), and Gunter Grass (1999), I wonder how many people worldwide have read the works of the last 10 or 12 winners, or went out and bought their books just because their authors had won the highest honor in all of literature.

Doris Lessing (2007) -- a British writer I am familiar with -- who won the Literature Prize a couple of years ago practically spat upon the honor. Reporters caught up with her in her driveway bringing in groceries or something and she basically said she couldn't have cared less, it didn't mean much to her. Ms. Lessing was roundly criticized for being churlish and ungrateful.

I'm sorry if I sound like an ignorant, xenophobic reader with narrow interests, but this was John Updike's year, and Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.

R.I.P. John Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009)