NADIRS

Juxtaposing reality and fantasy, nightmares and dark laughter, Nadirs is acollection of largely autobiographical stories based on Herta Muller'schildhood in the Romanian countryside. The individual tales reveal achild's often nightmarish impressions of life in her village. Seamlesslymixing reality with dream-like images, they brilliantly convey the inner,troubled life of a child and at the same time capture the violence andcorruption of life under an oppressive state. Herta Muller has been one ofthe most prolific and acclaimed German-language writers of the last decade.Born in 1953 in the Banat, a German-language region of Romania, sheemigrated to West Berlin in 1987 and currently resides in Hamburg. She hasreceived numerous literary awards, including the Kleist Prize. In 1998 hernovel The Land of Green Plums was awarded the International IMPAC DublinLiterary Award.