Herta Mueller wins 2009 Nobel literature prize

Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature today, honoured for work that "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed", the Swedish Academy said.

The 56-year-old author, who emigrated to Germany from then-communist Romania in 1987, made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories titled "Niederungen," or "Lowlands" in English, which was promptly censored by her government.

In 1984 an uncensored version was smuggled to Germany where it was published and her work depicting life in a small, German-speaking village in Romania was devoured by readers there.

That work was followed by "Oppressive Tango" in Romania.

"The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively," the Academy said. "Because Mueller had publicly criticised the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country."

In 1987 she emigrated to Germany with her husband two years before dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled from power amid the widening communist collapse across eastern Europe.

Mueller's parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania and father served in the Waffen SS during World War II.