The Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller enters the pantheon of Nobel Literature laureates today

The Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller enters the pantheon of Nobel Literature laureates today, joining illustrious figures such as Günther Grass, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Böll and Theodor Mommsen. Like Grass and Böll, her writings are intrinsically linked to Germany's turbulent history. She was born in 1953 in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf in Romania. Her father had been a Waffen SS member and her mother survived five years in a Ukrainian Gulag, as her family shared the fate of most ethnic Germans under the Soviet armed forces and the Ceaucescu (chow-oo SHEHS-koo) dictatorship: she herself lost her job for refusing to spy for the communist regime. Now, she's got to come to terms with her new-found fame and wealth: