FACTBOX: Who is Herta Mueller?

(Reuters) - Herta Mueller, 56, won the 2009 Nobel Prize for literature on Thursday.

Here are some facts about Herta Mueller.

* EARLY LIFE:

-- Herta Mueller was born in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania in August 1953. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania.

-- Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War Two and her mother, like many German Romanians, was deported to the Soviet Union in 1945 and spent five years in a work camp in present-day Ukraine.

-- Mueller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timisoara. During this period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who opposed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and sought freedom of speech.

-- After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, she was harassed by Securitate.

* LITERARY CAREER:

-- Mueller made her debut with the collection of short stories "Niederungen" (1982), which was censored in Romania. Two years later, she published the uncensored version in Germany and, in the same year, "Drueckender Tango" in Romania.

-- The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the West German press received them very positively.

-- As Mueller had publicly criticised the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country. In 1987, Mueller emigrated together with her husband, author Richard Wagner.

-- "Atemschaukel," set in 1945 depicting the exile of the German Romanians in the Soviet Union, is her latest novel.

Sources Reuters/http//nobelprize.org

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)