Sir, - May I convey to you how delighted I am to see, for the second year running, a novel in translation win the prestigious and highly endowed International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. That out of a short list of ten books the only one to originate in a language other than English - Herta Muller's The Land of Green Plums - should have been selected, testifies to the truly international stature of the award. In a world where fiction written in English has a natural or, shall I say, unnatural advantage over anything written elsewhere, the jury's decision may well help enhance our perception of the wealth of foreign literature.
In her article "Romanian fiction writer wins Dublin's plum prize" The Irish Times, May 19th), Eileen Battersby calls Herta Muller a "Berlin-based Romanian". This description might lead your readers to assume that the prize-winning author is ethnically Romanian or writes in the Romanian language. Muller is, however, a "Rumaniendeutsche", a member of one of Romania's German ethnic and linguistic minorities, the Swabians of the Banat around Timisoara, whose rural life in an isolated enclave she has often portrayed in highly poetic prose. Born in Nitzkydorf in Romania, she emigrated to Germany in 1987 after suffering repression. Congratulations to her and her English translator, Michael Hofmann! - Yours, etc., Hans-Christian Oeser,
Editor, Translation Ireland, Killiney, Co. Dublin.