Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

If in her novels she is one of the most difficult writers I have ever read, in this volume of autobiographical essays, Herta Muller is not only a great story-teller, but also a wonderful and pertinent thinker on the condition of man (actually, woman, her very case) against tyranny and its dehumanizing effects. Her stories, filled with sorrow and latent despair, give a relevant measure of the true face of totalitarianism and its incredible aberrations, its abusive intrusions into the private lives of its citizens. This book can also be read as a historical testimony of the physical but mostly mental torments of a person who is repeatedly investigated by an institution as snaky as Securitatea.

I feel that this was a necessary book both for the reader, but also for its author, as it tries to analyze some of the great issues of our contemporary world: man facing dictatorship, the condition of emigrant writer (though not forced to change her language), events in childhood and the way they stick to our memory, relationships between family members and the manner each one bears his/her burden, trying to softly deal with his/her personal demons. In that sense, Herta Muller has an interesting way of expressing herself, as the poetic element blends in harmoniously with the clear and concise form of giving written life to her thoughts.