Herta Mueller wins Nobel Prize for literature

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The Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for literature. The Swedish Academy says her work reflects the experience of growing up in Romania. Heres a closer look at her story.

The Swedish ambassador to Germany arrives at Herta Mueller's house in Berlin, to congratulate the 2009 Nobel Literature Prize winner.

Holding a bouquet, the ambassador finds no one at home.

Ruth Evelyn Jacoby, Swedish Ambassador to Germany, said, "I am congratulating Germany on this wonderful prize. It's fantastic that a German writer is getting the Nobel Prize for Literature and that it's a woman and a person with such a fascinating background."

Herta Mueller was born on Aug. 17th, 1953, in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania.

In 1987, she emigrated together with her husband, author Richard Wagner.

56-year-old Mueller made her debut with a collection of short stories, Niederungen, in 1982.

And now her work which depicts "the landscape of the dispossessed" has won her the top prize.

Herta Mueller said, "I still can't believe it. I know it, but I can't believe it, it has not sunk in yet. I did not expect this."

Most of Mueller's work is in German, but has been translated into other languages.

She is just the 12th woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 108 years.

2009 is turning out to be a good year for women -- four have so far received Nobel Prizes.