Teposhte

The short story collection Teposhte is the first work by Nobel laureate Herta Müller. These stories are mostly autobiographical, based on the author's childhood in the Romanian village of Banat. The book takes its name from the longest story in the collection, but at the same time Teposhte can also be understood as the moral disintegration of the characters themselves. In these stories the idyll of the rural family is shattered as they tell of a childhood without joy, often brutal, as well as the lust, alcoholism and greed of adults. Through a blend of reality and fantasy, of dreams and "dark" laughter, the child's impressions of life are revealed, along with life under Ceaușescu's dictatorship in Romania.