Who is She? The Winner of 2009 Noble Prize for Literature

Many people’s first reaction when they heard the Nobel Prize for literature had gone the German writer Herta Müller was an embarrassed shrug. Who was she? Why had she been awarded the most prestigious international prize in literature?

The Nobel is an odd award. Its winners over the years have encompassed deserved winners (TS Eliot, Samuel Beckett, VS Naipaul) and some rather bizarre choices. Whatever his other virtues, I’m not sure Winston Churchill was the right choice in 1953.

Then there are the less well-known writers – or at least those who haven’t been much translated into English. This was the situation of the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz who won in 1989. In that choice the Swedish Academy was vindicated – his novels, including the wonderful Cairo trilogy, are now available to many more readers than before. Then again other winners seemed pretty lightweight. (The Italian playwright Dario Fo springs to mind)

So what of Herta Müller? She was born into a German-speaking village in Romania in 1953. Works such as Niderungen (Lowlands), a collection of stories published in 1984, examine the violence and corruption of Communist rule. In 1998 her novel The Land of Green Plums (translated into English by Michael Hofmann) won the Dublin-based Impac Prize. In Germany, where she now lives, she has been awarded dozens of literary prizes and is by no means an obscure figure. The Academy’s citation (never great examples of penetrating insight) claims that she "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

Despite the Impac, Müller has not yet achieved much recognition in the English-speaking world. The Nobel committee – which makes it decision based on the recommendation of writers and academics – are clearly urging further investigation into her work. One can see their point: what use would it really be to give it to Philip Roth?

When the French writer JMG Le Clézio won last year, there was a similar collective shrug. But since then, his books have been reissued in English and new translations undertaken. (Tim Martin provided a long assessment in the Books pages earlier this year). Over the next few months, as translators, publishers, editors and readers catch up with Müller (the publisher Serpent’s Tail will be reprinting The Passport next week) we will be able to judge the award with more certainty.

(By Sameer Rahim - Telegraph)