POST‐COMMUNIST TRUTHS: UNDERSTANDING HERTA MÜLLER IN ROMANIA

Abstract

AbstractSituated within the discourse of Romanian post‐Communist mentalities, this article aims to analyse Herta Müller's prose from a narratological and geocritical point of view. The works of this German‐language author are often interpreted as dissident literature and explored through the lens of narrative theory, autofiction, and her highly poetic language. Numerous Romanian authors have depicted the Communist ‘still life’ in their books, but Müller uses Communism as a framework and tool for metaphorising liminal and traumatic experiences. Focusing on Herta Müller's prose, this article explores three constituent layers: her poetics of fiction, the representation of imaginary spaces, and how her works are perceived in post‐Communist Romania. Müller's fictional worlds are fragmented and decentred, with a fractal configuration, as they are created by a network of transfer‐images that function in a rhizomatic manner. Communist Romania is turned into a mental space and becomes the frame for expressing different configurations of anguish. Comparing the Communist space found in Müller's writings to the actual Communist space of Romania reveals the way in which her works do not merely reflect a damaging socio‐political context, but actually expose the universal dystopia that is the consequence of any extremist ideology.