Good news from the New York Times:
Curious readers clamoring for more work from this year’s Nobel
laureate in literature will be able to get their hands on two more
titles in the next three years. Metropolitan Books has acquired the
North American rights to two novels by Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who was awarded the Nobel Prize last month.Only 5 of Ms. Müller’s 20-some books have been published in English.
Metropolitan Books, a unit of Macmillan that previously released “The
Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment,” has acquired rights to
publish “Everything I Possess, I Carry With Me,” a finalist for the
2009 German Book Prize, and “The Fox Was Always a Hunter,” originally
published in Germany in 1992.Metropolitan will publish “Everything I Possess” — “Atemschaukel” in
German — in September 2011 and “The Fox Was Always a Hunter” — “Der
Fuchs War Damals Schon Der Jager” — in September 2012. Sara Bershtel,
publisher of Metropolitan, said the company was also reissuing
hardcover editions of “Green Plums” and “The Appointment” and a
paperback of “The Appointment.” (Northwestern University Press has the
rights to paperback editions of “Green Plums.”)Ms. Bershtel said Philip Boehm, Ms. Müller’s previous English
translator, would translate the books. The works, Ms. Bershtel said,
“will help very much bring her to people’s attention.”
I hope Ms. Bershtel is correct and there will be some interest in the US for Herta Müller's books. Most Americans' eyes glaze over when they are confronted with literature in translation (or any literature, for that matter that hasn't been vetted by Oprah Winfrey).
See my review of Herztier (Green Plums). Next for me is Atemschaukel, if I can ever find a copy.
