Heart animal
Herztier is the second novel by the Nobel Prize winner for literature Herta Müller ; it was published in 1994 by Rowohlt Verlag . The focus is on four young people who live in the totalitarian Ceaușescu regime of Romania in the 1980s and try to escape the dictatorship. The first-person narrator is a young member of the German minority of the Banat Swabians , similar to Herta Müller.
The novel is preceded by a poem by Gellu Naum , the famous Romanian surrealist .
Title and definition of terms
The title “heart animal” is based on the Romanian neologism inimal , a fusion of the words inimă (heart) and animal (animal). Every person, as the novel says, has a heart animal that determines his character and mind.
“When the song is over, she thinks the child is deep asleep. She says: Rest your heart animal, you played so much today. "(Page 40)
"He does not love her, but she can control him by saying to him: Your heart animal is a mouse." (Page 81)
“Breath crept out of each mouth into the cold air. A pack of fleeing animals passed before our faces. I said to Georg: Look, your heart animal is moving out. "(Page 89)
content
The novel begins with a story about a young woman named Lola. Lola comes from a small Romanian village that she is leaving to study in a big city. There she lives in the dormitory with five other girls in a small room that they call the "square". To escape to another world, Lola has random affairs with factory workers, and later with a gymnastics teacher from the university. Because she does not manage to escape, she hangs herself. Posthumously she is publicly excluded from the communist party.
The first-person narrator meets three young men, Edgar, Kurt and Georg. Together they write anti-regime poems that are hidden in an abandoned summer house. Frequently questioned by Captain Pjele, the friends finally take on various jobs after their studies.
People repeatedly disappear inexplicably. Captain Pjele checks the first-person narrator's letters to her friends and only then forwards them. The first-person narrator hides a box with letters and books from her seamstress. At this time, the first-person narrator is visited by Kurt.
The novel then jumps into the future in which the narrator lives in Germany and her friend Tereza visits her, the latter, however, spying for the secret service. An acquaintance of the narrator tries to escape and is killed in the process, the official information about his death is falsified. One by one, all friends except Kurt lose their jobs. Through Tereza, the narrator finds a new job as a private teacher. During one of the many interrogations by the captain, the narrator learns of her mother's application to leave the country.
Georg is beaten up by strangers and is admitted to the hospital with a broken jaw. When he wants to sue the stranger, the court does not accept the lawsuit, as Georg only has a fake discharge certificate from the hospital. Shortly afterwards, Georg went to Germany and committed suicide in Frankfurt. The narrator and Edgar also leave later, only Kurt stays in Romania. When they arrived in Germany, the two received threatening letters and threatening phone calls. They learn that Kurt hanged himself, but first sent out a list of names of those who had escaped. This is where the book ends.
characters
First-person narrator: Lives with Lola and other girls in the square. After Lola's suicide, she finds her diary in her suitcase. Over time, she too will become a victim of persecution. She travels to Germany with Edgar. She too often received death threats there.
Lola: Lola lives with the first-person narrator in the "square". She later became a member of the Communist Party and distributed leaflets. She keeps a diary in which Kurt, Georg, Edgar and the first-person narrator read after her suicide. After her death, she is publicly expelled from the party.
Edgar: He studies at the same university as Kurt and Georg. He comes from the Banat. Together with Georg, Kurt and the first-person narrator, he writes oppositional poems. Over time, he too becomes a victim of Securitate persecution. He travels to Germany with the first-person narrator. There he repeatedly received death threats.
Kurt: He is a student and a Banat Swabian. Together with Georg, Edgar and the first-person narrator, he writes oppositional poems. Over time, he becomes a victim of Securitate persecution. After graduating, he worked as an engineer in a slaughterhouse. He is found hanged shortly after his friends emigrated.
Georg: He studies at the same university as Kurt and Edgar. He comes from the Banat. Together with Kurt, Edgar and the first-person narrator, he writes oppositional poems. Over time, he too becomes a victim of Securitate persecution. After graduating, he works as a teacher. After emigrating to Germany, he committed suicide by jumping out of a window.
Captain Pjele: He is a captain of the Securitate and interrogates and harasses the main characters Edgar, Georg and Kurt.
backgrounds
Biographical background
Herta Müller, whose family belonged to the German minority in Romania, was born in 1953 as a Banat Swabian in Nitzkydorf , Romania. Because the conversations and the situation in Nicolae Ceaușescu's totalitarian system became too threatening, Herta Müller began to write about this suppression. Therefore one can also see parallels between her life in the German minority and the life of the first-person narrator in Herztier, for example working as a translator in a factory and her refusal to work for the Securitate in 1976. Just like Herta Müller received the First-person narrator received a permit for the application to leave the country and left for Germany in 1987.
Historical background
Under the government of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania, which was under the influence of the Soviet Union, was under dictatorship from 1967 to 1989. The book is based on the state of the country in the 1980s and the catastrophic living conditions of the people and some who refused to accept the government's regime. At the same time it shows the living conditions of the German minority in Romania, the Banat Swabians. The Banat Swabians still exist.
reception
Herta Müller received the Kleist Prize for Herztier in 1994 . In 1998, the English translation of the novel won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award , the world's most valuable literary prize for a single work. The book was translated into English by Michael Hofmann in 1998: "The Land of Green Plums" (Granta Books, London 1999, ISBN 1-8620-7260-4 ).
Reviews
"A strange, a wonderful book"
"The oppressive atmosphere is also borne by the diverse motifs of illness and death"
theatre
A staged reading of the novel premiered on April 20, 2009 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin . A stage version by Carsten Ramm and Nadine Schüller authorized by Herta Müller was premiered on April 16, 2011 by the Badische Landesbühne Bruchsal . At the Theater Konstanz on October 13, 2013 had another authorized stage adaptation of Herztier premiered (Text and directed by Mario Portmann).
Awards
- 1989: Ricarda Huch and Marieluise Fleißer Prize
- 1991: Kranichsteiner Literature Prize
- 1994: Kleist Prize
- 1998: International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
expenditure
- First edition: Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-04366-7 . rororo 13709 1996, ISBN 3-499-13709-7 .
- Paperback: Fischer TB 17537, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-17537-6 ; Fischer Pocket Library 51153, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-51153-2 (limited special edition).
- Hardcover: Hanser, Munich / Vienna, 2007, ISBN 978-3-446-20877-3
- as audio book : Unabridged reading by Katja Riemann , Director: Margrit Osterwold (5 audio CDs, 397 minutes), audiobook, Hamburg, 2011, ISBN 978-3-899-03150-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kultur-ostbayern.de ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Herta Müller Herztier (paperback edition Frankfurt / M. 2007)
- ^ Heart animal (novel), ISBN 3-446-20877-1
- ↑ dieterwunderlich.de
