Conferences
Herta Müller: Always the Same Snow and Always the Same Uncle
On Sunday, April 13th, 2008, the Black Box Hall of the National Theatre will host the conference held by Herta Müller, "Always the Same Snow and Always the Same Uncle", starting at 11.00 a.m.
About the Conference
The metaphorical title of the conference stems from the German phrase "yesterday's snow", which refers to things that have become obsolete, which should no longer be taken into account. However, according to the author, the experience of deportation to the Soviet Union, which her mother suffered in 1945, is similar to the experience of the writer's emigration to Germany in the 1980s - in both cases, snow plays a dramatic role; just as in both cases, Soviet investigators and examiners at the German Federal Immigration Office behave in the same brutal and abusive manner. Hence, the idea that yesterday's snow had an overwhelming significance, because otherwise why would you need to remember and get rid of it today?
About Herta Müller
She was born in 1953 in Nitzkydorf, Banat. She worked, after graduating from Romanian and German philology, first as a translator in an industrial equipment factory. But she was soon fired, because she refused to cooperate with the Romanian Intelligence Service. Her first book, Niederungen ("Plains"), completed in 1978, was not accepted for publication, and it was not until 1982 that it saw the light of print in a censored form. The original version would appear in Germany in 1984. The threat from the Romanian Intelligence Service continues, forcing Herta Müller to emigrate to Germany in 1987. Several invitations to teach at various universities take her to England, the United States, and Switzerland, and recurring themes in the author's poetry and prose are: separation, emigration, leaving a place without reaching a destination. Her oeuvre has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Franz Kafka Prize, the Aristeion European Literary Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation Prize for Literature, or "Berliner Literaturpreis". Herta Müller currently lives and creates in Berlin.
Translated by Simona Nichiteanu
