Set in Romania at the height of Ceausescu's reign of terror, The Land of Green Plums tells the story of a group of young students, each of whom has left the impoverished provinces in search of better prospects in the city. It is a profound illustration of a totalitarian state which comes to inhabit every aspect of life; to the extent that everyone, event the strongest, must either bend to the oppressors or resist them and perish.
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 9781862072602
Number of pages: 256
Weight: 175 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 14 mm
A powerful autobiographical account, The Land of Green Plums ... will linger on in the mind and Michael Hofmann's translation is a marvel - Guardian
The Land of Green Plums is a miracle, a fearless human testimony which operates through the combined force of Müller's tight, understated eloquence and Hofmann's deft, atmospheric translation - Irish Times
If W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants suggested there are still new ways of writing about exile and the Holocaust, The Land of Green Plums promises similar possibilities for the literature of the Iron Curtain - Literary Review
Compelling reading - Sunday Times
... genuinely moving. The book ... develops an almost hypnotic power over the reader - Sunday Telegraph
Herta Müller ... is among the finest writers of protest ... The Land of Green Plums is a miracle - Irish Independent
Müller's clarity and compassion leaves all the weeping to the reader - New Statesman
taut, marvellously translated - Observer
Poetic and powerful - Express
This book cannot fail to impress - Big Issue in the North
No number of re-readings will lessen the impact of Muller's ... terrifying masterpiece - The Irish Times
Since publication the novel's reputation has been steadily growing - Irish Independent
As a depiction of a world where you have to be very careful what you say, The Land of Green Plums works hauntingly, disturbingly well - Nick Lezard, Guardian
Nothing I have read brings home more the horror of a society which combined agrarian backwardness with the monstrosities of the one-party state - Anne McElvoy, Evening Standard
This is a written so poetically, it is beautiful.
It is about a totalitarian state and those living under it.
Please give it a chance!
I found this hugely disappointing. It was written in such an unreadable style, I had to give up. I had hoped for more about the ethnic Germans in Romania, but there wasn't much, at least not in the beginning.... More
Different to anything I’ve read. It captures the dystopian totalitarian nightmare under Ceaușescu in unique prose. Lots of individual scenes are created that feel like myth or memory overall telling the struggle of... More
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