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Why Herta Müller matters
By awarding the 2009 Nobel prize for literature to Herta Müller, the Swedish Academy is not only honouring a beautiful writer, but also expanding our concept of Europe
After the peace treaties of 1919, what had been the province of the Banat in Austria-Hungary was divided between Romania and the new state of Yugoslavia with a small portion remaining in Hungary.
If one flies over the region, however, the villages large and small look the same: a main road with streets or tracks at right angles to it; houses with huge gardens, almost small holdings, behind them – villages devised by draughtsmen on land that was empty after the Turkish wars or had to be drained before it could be cultivated.
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Guardian