Herta Mller

Two languagesGerman and Romanianinform the novels, essays, and collage poetry of Nobel laureate Herta Mller. Describing her writing as autofictional, Mller depicts the effects of violence, cruelty, and terror on her characters based on her own experiences in Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceauescu regime. Herta Mller: Politics and Aesthetics explores Mllers writings from different literary, cultural, and historical perspectives. Part 1 features Mllers 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 Mllers texts. Contributors discuss life under the Romanian Communist dictatorship while also stressing key elements of Mllers poetics, which promises both self-conscious formal experimentation and political intervention. One of the first books in English to thoroughly examine Mllers writing, this volume addresses audiences with an interest in dissident, exile, migration, experimental, and transnational literature.