Herta Müller: Politics and Aesthetics

By: Bettina Brandt

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Synopsis: Two languages—German and Romanian—inform the novels, essays, and collage poetry of Nobel laureate Herta Müller. Describing her writing as &“autofictional,&” Müller depicts the effects of violence, cruelty, and terror on her characters based on her own experiences in Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceauşescu regime.Herta Müller: Politics and Aesthetics explores Müller&’s writings from different literary, cultural, and historical perspectives. Part 1 features Müller&’s Nobel lecture, five new collage poems, and an interview with Ernest Wichner, a German-Romanian author who has traveled with her and sheds light on her writing. Parts 2 and 3, featuring essays by scholars from across Europe and the United States, address the political and poetical aspects of Müller&’s texts. Contributors discuss life under the Romanian Communist dictatorship while also stressing key elements of Müller&’s poetics, which promises both self-conscious formal experimentation and political intervention.One of the first books in English to thoroughly examine Müller&’s writing, this volume addresses audiences with an interest in dissident, exile, migration, experimental, and transnational literature.