The pressure of experience pushes language into poetry. Fact, fistion, autofiction, and surfiction in Herta Müller's work

Over the last fifteen years, the emergence of groundbreaking work on trauma in literature and critical theory has made a profound impact both within and beyond the field of literature. M\ufcller surely represents and reflects upon the traumatic events of twentieth-century Europe, as well as the cultural diversity of East Central Europe; she feels compelled to write about them and to show her aversion to all forms of authoritarian rule. There is no doubt that M\ufcller\u2019s all-pervading concern with totalitarianism; her commitment to uncover political and cultural \u201ctruths\u201d distinguishes her as an author for whom personal integrity is everything. In fact, M\ufcller\u2019s work is not only structured by a narrative of trauma, articulated with increasing directness, but also by a remarkable lyrical intensity, that manages to preserve a substantial, enriching imaginative space for the reader within such unremitting anger. Thus the reader is not only confronted with \u201cautofiction,\u201d as M\ufcller herself suggests, but also with something akin to \u201csurfiction,\u201d a term coined by American author and critic Raymond Federman. I argue that this characteristic feature is not only a mark of her aesthetic achievement or her consummate artistry, but also the key to her convincing critical voice