MCLC: Mueller says Mo Yan choice a 'catastrophe' (7)

Denton, Kirk denton.2 at osu.edu
Fri Nov 30 09:00:18 EST 2012


MCLC LIST
From: Michael Day <mday at nu.edu>
Subject: Mueller says Mo Yan choice a 'catastrophe' (7)
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This is a response to Yomi Braester's response to the excerpts from a
brief interview given by Herta Mueller that featured earlier on the List.

While it may appear that Mueller has "a view common among Rumanian
émigrés" as regards literature written by Communist Party establishment
figures such as Mo Yan is, there is a bit more to it than that.

There is, of course, the fact that Mueller was no common Rumanian German
émigré, and she had numerous rather negative experiences at the hands of
the establishment while living in Rumania and has had continued
difficulties since her removal to Germany in the 1980s. Her continued
interest in the plight of her homeland and its writers is well documented,
as is her close friendship with Liao Yiwu and others of somewhat similar
experience.

Of course, it is just as easy to dismiss her brief comments as being
malignly influenced by Liao and others, of not getting out enough and
mixing with the "establishment", discovering what lovely people they may
actually be, once they've reverted to their at-home Daoist or generally
non-establishment natures when caught outside of their establishment
milieus, etc and so on.

But that would require something more than brief comments on non-Rumanian
matters, somebody actually sitting down with her for an extended chat. I
presume "the media" was happy enough with her sound bites, whether in
German or not. I'll just say that that there is a wee bit more to Mueller
than seems to be presumed by some, and while she may appear to be, to my
mind, very understandably and excusably emotional, what with being a
Rumanian German fiction writer and all, we might not want to lose sight of
her less than common experiences and the value of what she may say.

Michael M. Day




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