Herta Muller wins the Nobel prize

[TheFifthElement]

That's all!
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/s52Bpy3ATaT35iLRAfqL-dQ/view.m?id=202242&tid=120787&cat=Culture

[Niamh]

Congratulations to her.

[Barbarous]

I'm excited to read her work.

[Helga]

I admit that I had no idea who she was until I read about her Nobel in the paper. but I'll check her out now

[Niamh]

I've heard of her, but i've never read anything by her.

[Pecksie]

I've read 'The land of green plums' and I wasn't too impressed. It's a lyrical novel, but poor in plot and character development. I'm not too anxious to read another of her books. Insights appreciated.

[neilgee]

I've just voted to read that as another forum's Book of the Month without realising she was the Nobel Prize winner.

[Dinkleberry2010]

This tells on me I suppose, but I had never even heard of Herta Muller, much less read anything by the author.

[Pecksie]

This tells on me I suppose, but I had never even heard of Herta Muller, much less read anything by the author.

You're not alone in that. My former boss, a half-German and very cultured gentleman, told me that neither he nor any of his acquaintances in the German community here had ever heard of her. And I only came across her work this year, before she won the Nobel, but by pure chance... :)

[dfloyd]

I believe the book cited for her reward was a historical novel set in the time of Henry VIII. I would surmise while she is from a German etnic background, she has an English education.

[Dinkleberry2010]

This is just my opinion, mind you, but it seems to me that starting about twenty years ago, the Nobel Prize for Literature became political in nature, that is, the "winners" were not given the Prize because of a great body of work, or even the greatness of their work, but because of a certain stance or standing or position or viewpoint.

[DisPater]

I believe the book cited for her reward was a historical novel set in the time of Henry VIII. I would surmise while she is from a German etnic background, she has an English education.

She doesn't have an English education. She graduated from Timişoara University in Romania, Faculty of Letters, her specialty being German and Romanian (language and literature). She is born Romanian but with German heritage. During the period she lived in Romania, the country was under communist dictatorship. Starting with the beginning of the 1980s the German population was sold to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the price being 9000 DM (Deutsche Mark) per person - more or less. As I know she was one of those people.

[Pecksie]

This is just my opinion, mind you, but it seems to me that starting about twenty years ago, the Nobel Prize for Literature became political in nature, that is, the "winners" were not given the Prize because of a great body of work, or even the greatness of their work, but because of a certain stance or standing or position or viewpoint.

Completely agree with that. That is not to say that none of the writers are good (Coetzee and Pamuk, for instance, are wonderful), but some of the choices have raised eyebrows...

[dfloyd]

In my previous post, I was thinking of the woman who won the Booker Prize,
not the Nobel Prize.