the hunger angel (herta müller, tr philip boehm)

This novel of Muller’s has a very different tone to the previous one of hers I read. It’s a fragmented, poetic read, beautifully translated by Philip Boehm, which narrates the experiences of Leopold, a Romanian of German descent (as is Muller), who is sent to a Soviet Labour camp with fellow Romanians of German descent after the second world war. As such it gives voice to another marginalised chapter from that teeming cauldron of 20th Century European history. Leopold is barely an adult when he’s exiled, obliged to pay compensation for the actions of others. Muller’s text, the helpful afterword explains, was shaped by her conversations with Oskar Pastior, a poet from her home village. She takes those memories and bends them into a cratered planet of language. In Leopold’s hunger driven consciousness, words sometimes seem more concrete than objects or actions. The landscape, the hardship and above all, the hunger, are minted in Muller’s words. It’s not a read that always flows readily, anymore than the life the exile experienced was one which was lived easily. There are moments of jagged beauty, moments of nonsense, and the banality of suffering, packed into short chapters that create a mosaic which presents Leopold’s years in the labour camp with, perhaps, far more authenticity than a more ‘realistic’ documentation of events would.