Nadirs - by Herta Muller (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Juxtaposing reality and fantasy, nightmares and dark laughter, Nadirs is a collection of largely autobiographical stories based on Herta Müller's childhood in the Romanian countryside. The individual tales reveal a child's often nightmarish impressions of life in her village. Seamlessly mixing reality with dream-like images, they brilliantly convey the inner, troubled life of a child and, at the same time, capture the violence and corruption of life under an oppressive state.

Review Quotes

"Despite the pessimism and sense of oppression that run from the title through the final sentences, the reader is enriched by the precise observation and the unflinching honesty in the portrayals of the surroundings and the self, conveyed by the author's consummate artistry. Her texts are beautiful in the sense that she herself once defined in an interview with Wolfgang Mller: In art, beauty is that which goes beneath the surface of the matter and which does not deceived, which does not hide from us how complex it is and which shows us how uncertain and precipitous, and also how unbearable things are.' The range of Mller's artistry makes it difficult to convey the full resonance in an English rendering, yet Sieglinde Lug has provided a readable and accurate translation that will make Mller more accessible to an American audience."-Calvin N. Jones, South Atlantic Review -- Calvin N. Jones "South Atlantic Review" (10/08/2009)

"[Nadirs features] prose whose power manifests itself in the psychological observations of its author/narrator. . . . Owing gratitude to Lug's splendid translation, Nadirs is a grave, yet compellingly told series of vignettes which should force readers to look as much within themselves as within the text." -- Brian Budzynski "Review of Contemporary Fiction" (10/08/2009)

"The sudden appearance of words in unfamiliar semantic contexts turns [Mller's] texts into sensual landscapes of beauty and pain. The translator, Sieglinde Lug, has accomplished this in a highly convincing manner and is able to give the reader a taste of Mller's unique language."-Irena E. Frhoff, International Fiction Review -- Irena E. Frhoff "International Fiction Review"

"This is not a sentimental book, but Mller's keen sense of showing rural life as opposed to describing it, make this a very emotional and disturbing one." -- Michelle Kaske "Booklist" (10/08/2009)

"A work of striking originality and power."--"Kirkus Reviews"

"Muller, who won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for "The Land of Green Plums," is considered one of the most gifted contemporary German-language writers, a claim this newly translated collection of stories would seem to prove. Once again, Muller takes us back to Communist Romania. But unlike her previous work, Nadirs is a very personal book, as much about Muller''s own family sagas as it is about the inescapable scares of communism. . . . Originally published in German ten years ago, this book was well worth the wait; it is an important achievement in contemporary Eastern European literature"--"Library Journal"

"The 15 stories are melodious but sober in tone, echoing an overwhelmingly oppressive social atmosphere. It''s bluntly stated that boys are injured in local factories and mothers'' lives are unrelentingly harsh; meanwhile, Muller imbues a trip to the barber or a ride on the intervillage bus with colorful, surreal twists. . . . Most of these impressionistic pieces are bursting with breathtaking, earthy details."--"Publishers Weekly"

About the Author

Herta Müller, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, has been one of the most prolific and acclaimed German-language writers of the last two decades. Born in 1953 in the Banat, a German-language region of Romania, she emigrated to West Berlin in 1987 and currently lives in Berlin. Sieglinde Lug is a professor emerita of German and comparative literature at the University of Denver.