ALSO BY HERTA MÜLLER

  The Passport

  Traveling on One Leg

  Nadirs

  The Land of Green Plums

  The Appointment

  The Hunger Angel

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HERTA MÜLLER is the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the European Literature Prize. She is the author of The Hunger Angel, The Appointment, and The Land of Green Plums, among other books. Born in Romania in 1953, Müller lost her job as a teacher and suffered repeated threats after refusing to cooperate with Ceauşescu’s secret police. She succeeded in emigrating in 1987 and now lives in Berlin. You can sign up for email updates here.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Philip Boehm has won numerous awards for his translations from German and Polish, including works by Franz Kafka, Christoph Hein, Hanna Krall, and Stefan Chwin. He also works as a theater director and playwright: produced plays include Mixtitlan, The Death of Atahualpa, and Return of the Bedbug. He lives in St. Louis, where he is the artistic director of Upstream Theater.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Epigraph

  The way of the apple worm

  The man inside his own hand

  The forelock

  As good as a piece of bread

  A necktie

  Summer entrails

  Days of melons, days of pumpkins

  The cat and the dwarf

  Nuts

  A different silence

  Eardrum infection

  The smallest man carries the biggest cane

  The grass straw in the mouth

  Face without face

  The razor blade

  A fox will step into a trap

  You’re not saying anything

  My head is dark

  The fox on the table

  The hand kiss

  The lost shovel

  I can’t stand looking at the water when it’s so cold out

  There was a time and is no more

  The birthmark

  The wasp game

  The spreading city

  The chamber pot

  The fingernails grow

  Transparent sleep

  A black and white sky

  Frozen raspberries

  I don’t know you

  That doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all

  Also by Herta Müller

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  Copyright

  THE FOX WAS EVER THE HUNTER. Copyright © 2009 by Carl Hanser Verlag

  Translation copyright © 2016 by Philip Boehm. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Originally published in Germany in 1992 under the title Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger by Rowohlt Verlag.

  www.henryholt.com

  Cover photograph © Andrej Pandele/EST & OST Photography

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Müller, Herta, 1953– author.

  [Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger. English]

  The fox was ever the hunter: a novel / Herta Müller; translated by Philip Boehm.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-8050-9302-5 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-8050-9602-6 (electronic book)

  1. Romania—History—1944–1989—Fiction. 2. Political fiction. I. Boehm, Philip, translator. II. Title.

  PT2673.U29234F8313 2016

  833’.914—dc23

  2015032783

  The translator would like to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center for their generous support in making this book available in English.

  First U.S. Edition: May 2016

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

 


 

  Herta Müller, The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

 


 

 
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