Congratulations are in order

Congratulations to Herta Mueller for winning the 2009 Nobel literature prize. Her works include "Nadirs", "The Passport," "The Land of Green Plums," "Traveling on One Leg" and "The Appointment."
Here's an excerpt from The Funeral Sermon, which appeared in Nadirs

Father was lying in a coffin in the middle of the room. The walls were covered with so many pictures that you couldn't see the wall.

In one picture, Father was half as tall as the chair he was holding onto. He was wearing a dress and his bowed legs were all rolls of fat. His head was pear-shaped and bald.

In another picture Father was the bridegroom. You could see only half of his chest. The other half was a bunch of tattered white flowers in Mother's hands. Their heads were so close together that their earlobes were touching.

In a different picture Father was standing bolt upright in front of a fence. There was snow under his boots. The snow was so white that Father was surrounded by emptiness. His hand was raised above his head in a salute. There were runes on his collar.

In the picture next to it, Father had a hoe resting on his shoulder. Behind him there was a cornstalk sticking up into the sky. Father was wearing a hat on his head. His hat cast a wide shadow and hid his face.

In the next picture, Father was sitting behind the steering wheel of a truck. The truck was full of cows. Every week Father would drive the cows to the slaughterhouse in the city. Father's face was thin and had hard edges.

In all the pictures, Father was frozen in the middle of a gesture. In all the pictures, Father looked as though he didn't know what to do. But Father always knew what to do. That's why all these pictures were wrong. All those false pictures, all those false faces chilled the room. I wanted to get up from my chair, but my dress was frozen to the wood. My dress was transparent and black. It crackled whenever I moved. I rose and touched Father's face. It was colder than the objects in the room. It was summer outside. Flies were dropping their maggots in flight. The village stretched along the wide sandy road. The road was hot and brown, and burned out your eyes with its glare.