Germa novelist wins Nobel literature prize.

Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who has written widely about the oppression of dictatorship in her native country and the unmoored life of the political exile, on Thursday won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ms. Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 after years of persecution and censorship in Romania. She is the first German writer to win the Nobel award since Günter Grass in 1999. Just four of her works have been translated into English, including the novels “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment.”

Ms. Müller was born and raised in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf in Romania. Her father served in the SS during World War II and her mother was deported to the Soviet Union in 1945 and sent to a work camp in what is now Ukraine. As a university student studying German and Russian literature, Ms. Müller opposed the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu and joined Aktionsgruppe Banat, a group of dissident writers who sought freedom of speech.

She wrote her first work, a collection of short stories, in 1982 while working as a translator for a factory. The stories were censored by the Romanian authorities and Ms. Müller was fired from the factory after refusing to work with the Securitate secret police. While working as a kindergarten teacher, the uncensored manuscript of “Niederungen,” — or “Lowlands” — was smuggled to Germany and published there to instant critical acclaim.

“Niederungen” and other early works depicted life in a small village and the repression faced by its denizens. Her later novels, including “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment,” approach allegory as they graphically portray the brutality suffered by modest people leaving under totalitarianism.

Ms. Müller has continued to speak out against oppression and collaboration. In Germany, she has criticized those East German writers who worked with the secret police and recently withdrew from PEN, the human rights organization, to protest its decision to merge with an East German branch.

The awards ceremony is planned for Dec. 10 in Stockholm. As the winner, Ms. Muller will receive 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.4 million.