˜Theœ passport

The Passport is a novel whose subject is a German village in Romania caught between the stifling hopelessness of Ceausecu's dictatorship and the glittering temptations of the West. Stories from the past are woven together with the problems Windisch, the village miller, faces after he applies for permission to migrate to West Germany.... Herta Muller describes with poetic attention to the dreams and superstitions, conflicts and oppression of a forgotten region. In The Passport's sparse language, she captures the forlorn plight of a trapped people.