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Muller, Herta; Mueller, Herta (Author) & Boehm, Philip (Translator) : The Hunger Angel

Metropolitan Books, New York City, NY, 2012

ISBN 080509301X

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 292 pages. The author's fifth novel to be translated into English. One of the most important literary events of our time. The first appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Herta Muller's "Atemschaukel" in a felicitous English translation by Philip Boehm. Life in a concentration camp. It is told in a profoundly personal voice by its 17-year-old protagonist, Leo Auberg, in sixty-four impressionistic chapters. Auberg thereby reminds us of a now-forgotten historical fact: "None of us were part of any war, but because we were Germans, the Russians considered us guilty of Hitler's crimes". In one sentence, he sums up how millions of ethnic Germans living in Eastern Europe were either displaced, killed, or sent to Soviet camps after the Second World War. As always with Muller, the bleakness is made somehow bearable by flashes of wit, irony, and humor. Regarded as a national icon in Germany, "a living Goethe" (rhymes with Herta), Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize on the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of Communism: "The Committee has recognized an author who refuses to let the inhumane side of life under Communism be forgotten". That is a direct rebuke of Milan Kundera's famous (and frivolous) statement that "the condemnation of totalitarianism doesn't deserve a novel". Yes, it does, and in Muller's writing, what being human means in the context of a totalitarian system has a metaphysical lyricism. In his review, the great British writer A. N. Wilson hailed the novel as a "masterpiece of wrenching, Rilkean lyricism", greater than Solzhenitsyn's classic, "One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich". An absolute "must-have" title for Herta Muller collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen on the title page by Herta Muller. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Muller made a rare and historic appearance at the 2012 PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, during which her signature was obtained. Laid-in is a pristine copy of Philip Boehm's translation of her Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, which was distributed during the Festival. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First American Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of The Kleist Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes given to writers in German, in 1994. Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1998 for "The Land of Green Plums". Winner of the European Literature Prize in 2006. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine collectible set. (SEE ALSO OTHER HERTA MULLER TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 080509301X.

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