The Story Archive

The Hunger Angel

Herta Müller · 2009 CE · Novel · German · Contemporary

In January 1945 seventeen-year-old Leopold Auberg, a Transylvanian Saxon, is deported to a Soviet labour camp, where hunger becomes a personified presence that organises his days. The book grew out of conversations with the poet Oskar Pastior, who survived the same deportation and was to have co-written it. Awarded to Müller the year her Nobel Prize was announced.

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Attributes

Genre
HistoricalWar
Theme
Suffering & EnduranceSurvivalMemory & TimePower & CorruptionIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanScapegoat
Plot type
Exile and Return
Form
ChronicleConfession
Symbol / motif
The Prison
Conflict
vs Societyvs Nature
Mode / tone
RealistLyrical
Culture / tradition
German

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