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The Appointment
Brief Description
I've been summoned, Thursday, ten sharp. So begins one day in the life of a young clothing-factory worker during Ceausescu's totalitarian regime. She has been questioned before, but this time she knows it will be worse. Her crime? Sewing notes into the linings of men's suits...
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Format: Paperback / softback
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See moreBone-spare and intense, The Appointment is a pitiless rendering of the terrors of a crushing regime.
WINNER OF THE 2009 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE: Müller's fierce and finely-wrought novel about a young Romanian woman's discovery of betrayal in the most intimate reaches of her life.
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Description
I've been summoned, Thursday, ten sharp. So begins one day in the life of a young clothing-factory worker during Ceausescu's totalitarian regime. She has been questioned before, but this time she knows it will be worse.
Her crime? Sewing notes into the linings of men's suits bound for Italy. 'Marry me', the notes say, with her name and address. Anything to get out of the country.
As she rides the tram to her interrogation, her thoughts stray to her friend Lilli, shot while trying to flee to Hungary; to her grandparents, deported after her first husband informed on them; to Major Albu, her interrogator, who begins each session with a wet kiss on her fingers; and to Paul, her lover and the one person she can trust.
In her distraction, she misses her stop and finds herself on an unfamiliar street. And what she discovers there suddenly puts her fear of the appointment into chilling perspective.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781803513485
Publisher: Granta Books
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 07 May 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Granta Books
Contributors:
- Translated by Philip Boehm
- Translated by Michael Hulse
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 300g
Pages: 224
About the Author
Herta Müller was born on 17 August 1953 in Banat, Romania. In 1987, she emigrated to Germany and has lived in Berlin ever since. She is the author of The Land of Green Plums, The Appointment, The Hunger Angel and The Fox Was Ever the Hunter, among other works. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009.
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