Herta Müller (1953) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. Müller's parents were German speaking Rumanians. Her adult life were darkly overshadowed by the repression of the Ceausescu regime and the continuous harassment of the Securitate. The fears and traumas resulting from those experiences largely continue to dominate her life. When Herta Müller is not working on a novel, she composes so-called 'collage poems'. The bewilderment and fear that characterize her prose also pervade her poetry.