The Swedish Academy described 2009 Nobel Laureate Herta Müller as a writer “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.” Translated into over 40 languages, her works have received worldwide acclaim for their unflinching portrayals of the corrosive effect of political oppression on the human spirit. In her first New York appearance in over a decade, after a reading from her novel The Hunger Angel, Müller was interviewed by another literary titan, Claire Messud.