Overview

An in-depth investigation of the Romanian secret police's file on Muller, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, re-creating a ""file story"" of her surveillance. ""Herta Muller should share her Nobel with the Securitate."" This comment by a former officer in the Romanian secret police, or Securitate, was in reaction to hearing that Muller, a German writer originally from Romania, had won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Communist Romania's infamous secret police was indeed a protagonist in Muller's work, though an undesired and dreaded one: most of her writings are deeply and explicitly anchored in Ceausescu's Romania and her own traumatic experiences with the Securitate. Muller's file traces her surveillance from 1983 until after she emigrated to West Germany in 1987. She has written extensively in reaction to reading her file, but primarily addresses its gaps, begging the question what information the file does in fact contain. This book is an in-depth investigation of Muller's file, and engages with other related files, including that of her then-husband, the writer Richard Wagner. Valentina Glajar treats the files as primary sources in order to re-create the story of Muller's surveillance by the Securitate. In such an intrusive culture of surveillance, surviving the system often meant a certain degree of entanglement: for victims, collaborators, and implicated subjects alike. Veiled in secrecy for decades, these compelling and complex documents shed light on a boundary between victims and perpetrators as porous as the Iron Curtain itself.

Full Product Details

9781640141537

Table of Contents

Reviews

The richness and interdisciplinary character of Glajar's work make it equally appealing to surveillance studies scholars, Cold War historians, and Romanian and German studies specialists. * JOURNAL OF ROMANIAN STUDIES *

Author Information

VALENTINA GLAJAR is Professor of German at Texas State University.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available