From her childhood in Romania, in a village ‘as small as a thimble on the edge of the world’, through to life in exile in Germany, Herta Müller’s story unspools against the tumultuous history of Romania in the latter half of the twentieth century. Here, the Nobel Prize laureate reflects on cultural history, memory and trauma, and on what it was to live and write during Ceausescu’s regime: on the friendships that buckled under the weight of fear and paranoia; on the experience of being surveilled and interrogated; and on the unique blend of fear and tedium borne through life under totalitarianism.
The Village on the Edge of the World is a book that chronicles the minutiae of life under both fascism and the Soviet Union, while charting the existential questions posed by these regimes of the twentieth century – and how they remain with us in the twenty-first.
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"A vivid reflection on life and literature" (FT)
"A profound delight. In this seemingly casual tour inside the mind of one of the century's great writers there are frequent, electrifying moments of immense insight - each one feels like a trapdoor opening into a reality you realise you were, till now, just skimming the surface of. Müller's thinking is glorious to share in, and her thoughts have never been more relevant." (Anna Funder)
Kate McNaughton is a writer and translator of French, German and Italian into English. She was born and raised in Paris by British parents, and now lives in Berlin. Her debut novel, How I Lose You, was published in 2018.
Herta Müller was born on 17 August 1953 in Banat, Romania. In 1987, she emigrated to Germany and has lived in Berlin ever since. She is the author of The Land of Green Plums, The Appointment, The Hunger Angel and The Fox Was Ever the Hunter, among other works. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009.
Translators Aloud is a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the work of literary translators, for both published and unpublished works.