''The Hunger Angel'' (german: Atemschaukel; 2009) is a novel by

Herta Müller Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf (german: Nitzkydorf, link=no), Timiș County in Romania, her native language is G ...

. An English translation by

Philip Boehm Philip Boehm (born 1958) is an American playwright, theater director and literary translator. Born in Texas, he was educated at Wesleyan University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the State Academy of Theater in Warsaw, Poland. Boehm ...

was published in 2012.

Summary

It is a depiction of the persecution of ethnic Germans in Romania by the Stalinist regime of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, and deals with the deportation of Romanian Germans to the Soviet Union for forced labour by Soviet occupying forces during and after 1945. The novel tells the story of a youth from

Sibiu Sibiu ( , , german: link=no, Hermannstadt , la, Cibinium, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Härmeschtat'', hu, Nagyszeben ) is a city in Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania. Located some north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Ci ...

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

, Leo Auberg, who is deported at the age of 17 to a Soviet

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

in Nowo-Gorlowka ( Novogorlovka,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, now incorporated in Gorlovka) and spends five years of his life there. It is inspired by the experiences of poet

Oskar Pastior Oskar Pastior (; 20 October 1927 – 4 October 2006) was a Romanian-born German poet and translator. He was the only German member of Oulipo. Biography Born into a Transylvanian Saxon family in Sibiu (Hermannstadt), he was deported in January 19 ...

and other survivors, including the mother of the author. Initially, Pastior and Müller had planned to write a book about his experiences together, however, Pastior died in 2006. It is based on her interviews with many deportees from her home village of

Nițchidorf Nițchidorf (literally " Niczky's village"; german: Nitzkydorf; hu, Niczkyfalva, originally ''Kutas'') is a commune in Timiș County, Romania. It is composed of three villages: Blajova ( hu, Balázsd or ''Balázsfalva''), Duboz ( hu, Temesdoboz) a ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

; from fragments offered during her childhood by her mother; and extensively from her interactions with the poet Oskar Pastior who was a deportee from Sibiu (Hermannstadt) Romania for five years. Lesung

The title comes from a compound word "Hungerengel" coined by Pastior to describe the pervasive hunger that dominated his prison experience in the

Donets Basin The Seversky Donets () or Siverskyi Donets (), usually simply called the Donets, is a river on the south of the East European Plain. It originates in the Central Russian Upland, north of Belgorod, flows south-east through Ukraine (Kharkiv, Done ...

as war reparations slave labor. The fierce hunger was also an angel that kept him alive during the ordeal. The German title, ''Atemschaukel'', is another compound word that is more difficult to translate, meaning something like "BreathingSwing" or "BreathSwinging", to denote the mechanical and distanced aspects of self-awareness of breathing that the prison experience engendered. According to Ruth Klueger this book offers a new direction in German literature, that of fiction by a second hand participant in the camps, whether Gulag or Internment or Concentration or Extermination.

Translation

Translation rights have been sold in several countries including Poland and Sweden.''Everything I Possess I Carry With Me''
(New books in German). The working title of "Everything I Possess I Carry With Me", based on the first sentence of the book, was suggested by the German publisher when it sold translation rights, however no English-language translation was published under this title.

Awards and honors

The novel was nominated for the prestigious

German Book Prize The German Book Prize (''Deutscher Buchpreis'') is awarded annually, in October, by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (''Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels'') to the best new German language novel of the year. The books, publ ...

in 2009, and the author received the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year. The English translation by

was nominated for the

Best Translated Book Award The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the onlin ...

(2013), and won the

Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize is an annual literary prize for any book-length translation into English from any other living European language. The first prize was awarded in 1999. The prize is funded by and named in honour of Lord Weidenfe ...

(2013).

Editions

*''The Hunger Angel'', Philip Boehm (Translator),

Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. Currently, the company publishes in the fields ...

, April 24, 2012,

References

External links

"Half-lives in the shadow of starvation"
A review of ''The Hunger Angel'', by Costica Bradatan, ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

'', February 2013
Review: 'The Hunger Angel'

excerpt from the novel. September 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunger Angel, The 2009 German novels Books about Soviet repression Novels set in Russia Novels set in Romania Transylvania in fiction Works by Herta Müller 2009 poems Verse novels Metropolitan Books books Works about post–World War II forced migrations