Romanian born German author Herta Mueller won the Nobel Prize for literature-2009. In the packed hall of the Stockholm Stock Exchange, Peter Enguland the Permanent Secretary to the Swedish Academy said in statement, “The Nobel Prize in literature for 2009 is awarded to the German author Herta Mueller, who with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose depicts the landscape of the dispossessed,". She has had first hand experience of life in a totalitarian state. In her books she portrays life in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescus’s. In 2007 Mueller wrote an article in which she described Ceausescu “A parvenu with water taps and gold cutlery with a real weakness for palaces”. Besides novels she also writes poems and essays. Describing Mueller as a truly phenomenal writer Peter Englund says " I think it is a combination of a very, very distinct special language on one hand and then on the other, she has really a story to tell about growing up in a dictatorship but also growing up as a minority in another country and also growing up sort of a stranger for your own family. It is a very strong; very, very strong story to tell”.
According to Enguland “Her writings are about alienation toward the ruling powers but also toward her own family. She had a cruel, alcoholic father and a mother who never recovered from her sufferings in the Soviet camps. Both her maternal and paternal grandparents were horrifically wounded and marked by what they had been through. But the great thing with Herta Müller is that she sees these forces and this remoteness in herself too,”
Mueller was born on 17 August 1953 at Nitchidorf, in Banat in western Romania. Her father worked in the Nazi SS during the Second World War The Romanian Communists deported her mother to a labour camp in Ukraine in the USSR.
She worked as a translator in the beginning. But she was sacked from the job for refusing to work for Ceausescus’s secret police. She found solace in literature. Her ‘Niederungen’ (‘Nadir’), a collection of short stories finished in 1978, was published in 1982 after mutilated by the censors in Romania. However, in 1984 it was published in the Federal Republic of Germany exactly as she wrote it. In 1987 she and her husband escaped to Germany. The ‘Passport’ one of her remarkable novels came out in 1996 in Germany. ‘The Appointment’, another novel, appeared in 2001.
Her works portray life in Ceausescus’s Romania. She also dwells on corruption, repression, intolerance and her fight for freedom of expression. Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy described her language as ‘fantastic’ and ‘very distinctive’ and ‘extremely precise’. She writes ‘short sentences with lots of images’.
Major Works:-
•Niederungen-.1982.
•Druckender Tango (Opressive Tango)1984
•Hunger and Seide (Hunger and Silk) 1995.
•Heute war ich mir libernicht begenet (The Appointment) 1997
•Im Haarknoten wohnteine Dame ( A Lady Lives in the Hair Knot) 2000
•Die blassen Hrren mit den Moakkatassen ( The Pale Gentleman with their Espresso Cups) 2005
•Atemschaukel 2009.

Aristotle has many things to say about style of writings also. In his ‘Rhetoric’ he discusses style in some detail. According to Aristotle the sine qua non of good writing is clarity. He notes that man is the animal that employs a language to communicate. Language is the principal media through which man communicates with each other. For the communication to be effective the language should be clear, and simple. A writer must use appropriate style to put his ideas across to his readers. He is of the view that familiar words and expressions help the readers to grasp the significance of writing. He is also aware of the fact that a writer cannot always stay away from employing unfamiliar words and expressions. It is the figures of speech such as slimily and metaphor and personification that make the writing charming. Employing figures of speech would not discourage people from reading as they make use of metaphors in their ordinary speech. He says it is the combination of familiar and unfamiliar that suits imaginative writings. According to Aristotle compound words suits lyrics and rare and unfamiliar words suits epics. The appropriate language for drama that stands close to everyday speech is metaphorical. He says that the style of prose is different from that of poetry, though both employ metaphors. The charm of poetry is derived from the unfamiliar words and expressions and metaphors. In prose writings one should avoid countless clauses and faulty punctuation marks. They could lead to many confusions and misunderstandings. Aristotle says that words can be arranged in two ways, loosely and periodically. In the case of the former the sentences are made up of connective words. It has no particular form. In the latter case each sentence is complete and it is easy to understand the sentence without any extra effort. It has a definite form. And it has grace and charm.

Aristotle says that the origin of comedy is obscure. Nothing is known about the person or persons who introduced the masques and the various characters either. However, the compositions of the plots originated in Sicily, says Aristotle. Comedy emerged out of Satire which in turn is believed to have originated from the phallic songs. Phallic songs are songs sung during the worship of Dionysus. The Orphic Mysteries tell us a lot about Dionysus. Dionysus was the god of wine and of the sense of liberation from human bondage and of access to divinity that intoxication bestows. Comedy evolved out of Satire in course of time. The major difference between a satire and a comedy is that while the former deals with the personal the latter deals with the general. Satire is a scathing personal attack. Comedy portrays man in his worst aspects. It does not portray man as cruel or wicked. It points to the defective and the ugly aspects of man. The comical actions are not destructive or harmful. Though it does make us laugh our hearts out it does not make fun of or hurt anyone personally. It is that they are ludicrous by nature. Aristotle does not see any malice in the pleasure derived from a comedy as Plato does. According to Plato defects in a person should arouse the feeling of sympathy not laughter in the audience. However, Aristotle points to the fact that the defects that make the audience laugh is not personal but general. What evokes laughter is the follies and weakness of a ‘type’. And hence it does not hurt anyone. Aristophanes’ ‘Wasps’, ‘Clouds’, ‘Frogs’ are the most famous Greek comedies. The function of a comedy is correction of society. However, the impact of a comedy may not last as long as that of a tragedy.