German novelist Herta Müller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature today for depicting the 'landscape of the dispossessed' with 'the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose.' She is only the 12th woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 108 years.

Müller was born in Romania in 1953 and became the subject of oppression by Ceausecu's totalitarian government after she refused to become an informant for his secret police. In 1987, Müller emigrated to Berlin, where she currently resides.

More about Herta Müller and her work.
Ten most recent Nobel Laureates in Literature.

Herta Müller Wins Nobel Prize in Literature originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 19:14:12.

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Hilary Mantel took home the 41st Man Booker Prize Tuesday for Wolf Hall, an historical novel that takes Henry VIII's court as its subject, centering specifically on Thomas Cromwell, one of the king's royal advisers.

Other finalists for this year's Booker were

• The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
• Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
• The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
• The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

  The Man Booker Prize is awarded each year to the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. It is both one of literature's highest honors and one of its most lucrative, as the winner takes home £50,000.

  Previous Man Booker Prize winners

  Wolf Hall Takes 2009 Man Booker Prize originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 18:36:51.

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Audrey Niffenegger, renown for her wonderful debut The Time Traveler's Wife, proves herself yet again in Her Fearful Symmetry, in which she explores the unseen world of spirits. Chicago twins, Julia and Valentina Poole, inherit their deceased aunt's estate, on the condition that they live in her London flat - overlooking Highgate Cemetary - for a year. Read more.

_{Photo credit: Scribner}

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 09:31:02.

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from @ About.com Contemporary Literature