Herta Mueller?

Just out of curiosity, is anybody familiar with the work of Nobel Prize winner Herta Mueller? Apparently she is Romanian-born, with very little work out in English, although I imagine now that she's won the Nobel Prize more of her work will come out in English.

Never heard of her. But to be perfectly honest, I don't think the Nobel Prize for Literature and literary achievement necessarily have to go together. Many of the people who won it in the past have never achieved great fame, neither before nor after their win. Out of more than a hundred people who have been awarded with the Nobel Prize, I myself have only heard of around 30, and only read fourteen, and of those fourteen, only really liked William Golding, Pablo Neruda, John Steinbeck, Pearl S. Buck, T.S. Eliot and perhaps George Bernard Shaw - William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway I even despise from the bottom of my heart. And who has ever read anything by Churchill? I mean, read it actually for the literary value?

So, don't worry if you don't know her. I guess many of the writers on the winners list only became known because they won the Nobel Prize, not because they would win in a popularity contest.

Also, let us be grateful for a moment that Ms Müller won the Prize - and not Ms Meyer.





On second thought, nobody can understand above joke without this information: Müller and Meyer (or Meier) are the two most common names in Germany

I was just curious. I happened to read the story in the newspaper and figured I would throw it out there just in case someone was familiar with her. Those are good points though, Laura.

Very true, Laura. Do you know anything about her that you'd like to share, Paul?
I've read a bit of the History of England by Churchill ... it's very good actually. And I am thankful that Ms Meyer has not won the Nobel Prize, although I am fairly shocked Obama has won the Peace Prize. What has he done, I'd like to know?

Selene wrote:

Very true, Laura. Do you know anything about her that you'd like to share, Paul?
I've read a bit of the History of England by Churchill ... it's very good actually. And I am thankful that Ms Meyer has not won the Nobel Prize, although I am fairly shocked Obama has won the Peace Prize. What has he done, I'd like to know?

Nah, I don't know a thing about her, expect for what I read in the newspaper. I guess she is about 58 years old, and a lot of what she wrote years ago was not exactly smiled upon by the governments that were in charge back in the days when there was still an "Iron Curtain". Beyond that I know nothing about her.

Wikipedia is a friend. I've looked through her list of published works... frankly, I wouldn't pick up any of these based on title alone. I mean, "Life is a fart in a lantern"?! WTF? But I guess she deserves the award, since she's won just about any other award available out there. So there must be something to it.

An interesting side note: Her husband is called Richard Wagner, but he doesn't have anything to do with music

Update: She'll be receiving the prize tomorrow. According to the news, she seems remarkably un-excited about it. If I were to receive any sort of Nobel Prize, I'd probably run around with a big grin on my face, but she seems to take it as "business as usual". Very strange!