
Herta Müller was born in Niţchidorf, Timiş County, Romania, the daughter of Swabian farmers. Her family was part of Romania's German minority and her mother was deported to a labour camp in the Soviet Union after World War II. She read German studies and Romanian literature at Timişoara University. In 1976, Müller began working as a translator for an engineering company, but in 1979 was dismissed for her refusal to cooperate with the Securitate, the Communist regime's secret police. Initially, she made a living by teaching kindergarten and giving private German lessons. Her first book was published in Romania (in German) in 1982, and appeared only in a censored version, as with most publications of the time. In 1987, Müller left for Germany with her husband, novelist Richard Wagner. Over the following years she received many lectureships at universities in Germany and abroad. In 1995 Müller was awarded membership to the German Academy for Writing and Poetry, and other positions followed. In 1997 she withdrew from the PEN centre of Germany in protest of its merge with the former German Democratic Republic branch. The Swedish Academy awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature to Müller, "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed". She currently resides in Berlin, Germany.
Books

Granta Portugal 5
Falhar Melhor
2015

Sult og silke
essays
1995

The Land of Green Plums
1994

The Fox Was Ever the Hunter
1992

Father's on the Phone with the Flies
A Selection
2012

Traveling on One Leg
1989

Nadirs
1982

Mein Vaterland war ein Apfelkern
Herausgegeben von Angelika Klammer
2014

The Appointment
1997

O rei se inclina e mata
2003

Cristina and Her Double Selected Essays
2009

Sempre a mesma neve e sempre o mesmo tio
2011

The Hunger Angel
2009

The Passport
1986