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The Appointment

A Novel

Herta Müller; Translated by Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm

Picador

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ISBN10: 0312655371
ISBN13: 9780312655372

Trade Paperback

240 Pages

$18.00

CA$23.50

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"I've been summoned. Thursday, ten sharp." Thus begins a day in the life of a young factory worker during Ceausescu's totalitarian regime. Her crime? Sewing notes into the linings of men's suits bound for Italy. "Marry me," the notes say, with her name and address. As she rides the tram to her interrogation, she thinks over the events and people of her life under terror. In her distraction she misses her stop and finds herself alone on an unfamiliar street. And what she discovers there makes her fear of the interrogation pale in comparison.

Reviews

Praise for The Appointment

"A slim, masterfully written tale."—Newsweek

"A brooding, fog-shrouded allegory of life under the long oppression of the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu."—The New York Times

"Powerful , , , Muller achieves something beautiful. She has wrested poetry from one woman's desire to remain human in an inhuman system."—Newsday

"Müller scatters narrative bombshells across a field of dreams."—San Francisco Chronicle

"With terse poetry, Müller brings to life a profoundly moving world . . . the lyrical beauty of the prose and its unflinching moral and emotional honesty carry the reader."—Bookforum

Reviews from Goodreads

BOOK EXCERPTS

Read an Excerpt

I've been summoned. Thursday, at ten sharp.

Lately I'm being summoned more and more often: ten sharp

on Tuesday, ten sharp on Saturday, on Wednesday, Monday. As

if years were a week, I'm amazed that winter comes so...

About the author

Herta Müller; Translated by Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm

Born in Romania in 1953, Herta Müller lost her job as a teacher and suffered repeated threats after refusing to cooperate with Ceaucescu's secret police. She succeeded in emigrating in 1987 and now lives in Berlin. The recipient of the European Literature Prize, she has also won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for her previous novel, The Land of Green Plums.

Herta Müller

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