The Land of Green Plums

"I wrote this book in memory of my Romanian friends who were killed under the Ceausescu regime. I felt it was my duty. I am overwhelmed because I never expected to win."
-Herta Müller, on winning the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize in 1998

Synopsis from the back cover of the Granta edition:

The Land of Green Plums is the story of a group of young people in Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania. Having left their impoverished villages for university in search of education and camaraderie, yet largely unprepared for urban life by their provincial childhoods, the youths quickly find their hopes dashed: the city, no less than the countryside bears the mark of the dictator’s corrosive touch. Eventually, the friends betray each other and themselves; as they do, we see the way the totalitarian state comes to inhabit every human realm and how everyone, even the strongest, must either bend to the oppressors or resist them and thereby perish.



The narrative is filled with metaphors that, for me, were a hurdle at start. When I completely discerned the meanings of such metaphors and got used to them, I found the narrative emotionally involving. This is a kind of novel that needs the complete attention of the reader; otherwise, he’ll get lost every now and then. This is an eye opener for me having no knowledge of this dark past of Romania under totalitarian regime and having known that this powerful and affecting story has been based on the real experience of the writer.

The book is definitely worth the money I spent on it and every minute I set aside to read it.

{June 21, 2009}