Celebrating Herta Mueller |
On December 10 in Stockholm, the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature will be awarded to the Romanian-born German novelist, Herta Müller. In celebration of this event, join us for a conversation between Sara Bershtel, publisher of Metropolitan Books, and Philip Boehm, Herta Müller’s translator, who will discuss the author and her work. The event is presented by the Goethe-Institut New York, the German Book Office New York, the Consulate General of Germany and the Romanian Cultural Institute.
Born in 1953 in a German-speaking village in Banat, Romania, Müller fled the country for Germany in 1987, after being prohibited from publishing in Romania. She has been a longstanding candidate for the award which comes just on the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism. Although she left Romania over 20 years ago, she returns constantly to the themes of oppression, exile and dictatorship in her novels and poems. "The most overwhelming experience for me was living under the dictatorial regime in Romania," Müller has once declared. "And simply living in Germany, hundreds of kilometres away, does not erase my past experience. I packed up my past when I left, and remember that dictatorships are still a current topic in Germany."
Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages and with books such as The Land of Green Plums, The Appointment, The Passport and Nadirs, Herta Müller numbers among the major authors of international literature. The Nobel Prize is the culmination of the many awards Müller has already received for her work.
New York-based singer Sanda Weigl and her band of Japanese musicians will travel to Stockholm to perform Maria Tanase's songs in a special event hosted by the Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm on the occasion of the Swedish Academy awarding ceremony.
| THU, December 10, 2009, 7 pm
GOETHE-INSTITUTE, WYOMING BUILDING
5 East 3rd Street (at Bowery)
New York, NY 10003
FREE ADMISSION
And the Nobel prize goes to Herta Mueller |
