Herta Müller, an ethnic German who fled Ceausescu's dictatorship in Romania, yesterday won the Nobel prize for literature for her stories presenting "the landscape of the dispossessed". Born into the marginalised German-speaking community in Romania, Ms Müller was dismissed from her job as a translator in 1979 when she refused to inform for the secret police. Her first story collection, written in German in 1982, was censored by Ceausescu's regime. Repeatedly threatened by the Romanian authorities, in 1987 she escaped to Germany, where she still lives. Ms Muller's literature reflects themes of oppression and alienation. "In this country, we had to walk, eat, sleep, and love in fear," she wrote in The Land of Green Plums (1996), which won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Ms Müllerwas praised by the Swedish academy for writing with "the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose". "I'm surprised and still can't...
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