Academic interest
The book attracted academic interest, and scholars discussed it in at least three distinct categories: language and style, often in relation to the politics of totalitarianism;[21] trauma studies, given the psychological pressure on the novel's characters, who grow up under a totalitarian regime;[7][17] and ethnographic and literary studies of the German minority in Romania. On the latter topic, Valentina Glajar, now at Texas State University, published an article in 1997.[5] Müller's Herztier is one of the four titles discussed in Glajar's 2004 monograph The German Legacy, on German-language literature from Eastern Europe.[22][23]
Attention in the press
In the German press, the novel's publication generated modest but positive attention. Rolf Michaelis reviewed the novel at length in Die Zeit in October 1994, analyzing the function of fear and praising the book as a "poetic epic", comparing transitions and structure to those found in Homer. "Herta Müller", he wrote, "does not simply use the German language; she makes it her own, in an incomparable way. She invents her own language."[24] A favorable review of the Dutch translation appeared in the national daily newspaper Trouw in 1996.[25]
The English translation was likewise favorably reviewed: a review in The San Diego Union-Tribune said "this heartbreaking tale is bitter and dark, yet beautiful".[26] Larry Wolff, in his review for The New York Times, described the book as "a novel of graphically observed detail in which the author seeks to create a sort of poetry out of the spiritual and material ugliness of life in Communist Romania".[12]
Radio Free Europe reported that the novel is a favorite of Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, the Iranian pro-democracy activist, who read it (in the Persian translation by Gholamhossein Mirza-Saleh[27]) shortly after being released from prison in 2009.[28]
