Herta Müller, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2009, was born in 1953 in Nitzkydorf, a German-speaking village in Romania. After college she worked as a translator in a factory, and was dismissed for refusing to work for the Romanian secret service, Securitate.
As a result, her first book, Niederungen, was unpublished for many years and appeared in 1982 in censored form. In 1984, the original version appeared in Germany, after which Herta Müller could no longer publish in Romania. Securitate subjected her again and again to threats, interrogation, and searches of her home. In 1987 she moved to West Germany. She has been a visiting professor at universities in England, the United States, Switzerland, and Germany. She lives in Berlin.
