Herta Müller
im Gespräch mit Denis Scheck
In Conversation with Denis Scheck
“Words can and may do anything”, writes Nobel laureate Herta Müller. Born on 17 August 1953 in German-speaking Nitzkydorf, Romania, as the daughter of a former SS soldier and a mother who was deported to a Ukrainian labour camp, Müller came a long way until she won the Nobel prize for literature in 2009.
Facing a publication ban, censorship and persecution by the secret service in the Socialist Republic of Romania, Müller emigrated to Germany in 1987, where she lives until this day. Herta Müller’s urgent prose reflects on timeless issues like oppression in totalitarian systems, hatred and intolerance, but also deliberates the fragile possibility of freedom. Like no other author she explores power and resistance, truth and lies. Among her best-known works are The Hunger Angel, The Fox was Ever the Hunter and The King Bows and Kills. To this day, she has won numerous accolades, such as the International Dublin Literary Award for her novel The Land of Green Plums in 1998. Literary critic Denis Scheck will host Herta Müller’s talk at Ruhrfestspiele.