Herta Müller, a writer and poet, and winner of the Nobel prize for Literature in 2009, is considered to be one of Europe’s most courageous and brilliant literary figures in recent years. She was born in the Banat Swabian region (today in Romania) where her family belonged to the German minority. Her political dissent and threats from the Romanian political police led her into self-exile in Berlin, where she has resided since 1987. Her work describes life in Romania under the tyranny of the Ceausescu dictatorship and, in good part, represents the destiny of German minorities in the countries of Central Europe, as in The Passport (in Catalan, L’home és un gran faisà en el món, Bromera, 2009; Siruela, 2007), The Land of Green Plums (in Catalan, La bèstia del cor, Bromera, 2009; Siruela, 2009), and The Hunger Angel (in Catalan, Tot el que tinc ho duc al damunt, Bromera, 2010; Siruela, 2010).

Notable among her more recent books are the collage poems, Father’s on the Phone with the Flies (in Spanish, El funcionario dijo, TresMolins, 2024), and the essay collection Immer derselbe Schnee und immer derselbe Onkel (in Catalan, Sempre la mateixa neu i sempre el mateix oncle, CCCB, 2013; Siruela, 2019), in which she draws on experiences of her childhood and youth to describe the persecution she suffered. Her most recent work is Eine Fliege kommt durch einen halben Wald (Hanser, 2023).