Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature Thursday, honored for work that "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed," the Swedish Academy said. The 56-year-old author, who emigrated to Germany from then-communist Romania in 1987, made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories titled "Niederungen," or "Lowlands" in English, which was promptly censored by her government.
In 1984 an uncensored version was smuggled to Germany where it was published and her work depicting life in a small, German-speaking village in Romania was devoured by readers there. That work was followed by "Oppressive Tango" in Romania. "The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively," the Academy said. "Because Mueller had publicly criticized the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country."
Most of her works in German, but some works have been translated into English, French and Spanish, including "The Passport," "The Land of Green Plums," "Traveling on One Leg" and "The Appointment." Mueller is the 12th woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Recent female winners include Austria's Elfriede Jelinek in 2004 and British writer Doris Lessing in 2007.
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