Müller, Herta

Herta Müller was born in the village of Nițchidorf in the Banat region of south-western Romania to parents from the German-speaking Swabian minority. The relatively wealthy family had lost their colonial produce emporium and land to the Communist regime during the Romanization era. Her mother, who after the war spent several years in a Soviet internment camp, tried to suppress the horrors she had seen and the injustice she had experienced by working hard. Her father, a former Nazi SS officer, was succumbing to drink.