Herta Müller, author of The Hunger Angel and The Fox Was Ever the Hunter, won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, as John Wilson notes in his piece on the value of this award. For her lecture at the Swedish Academy, she talked about handkerchiefs.

The harassment was passed down; the rumor was set into circulation among my colleagues. That was the worst. You can defend yourself against an attack, but there’s nothing you can do against libel. Every day I prepared myself for anything, including death. But I couldn’t cope with this perfidy. No preparation made it bearable. Libel stuffs you with filth; you suffocate because you can’t defend yourself. . . .

Since now I really had to make sure I came to work, but no longer had an office, and since my friend could no longer let me into hers, I stood in the stairwell, unable to decide what to do. I climbed up and down the stairs a few times and suddenly I was again my mother’s child, because I HAD A HANDKERCHIEF. I placed it on one of the stairs between the second and third floors, carefully smoothed it out and sat down. I rested my thick dictionaries on my knee and translated the descriptions of hydraulic machines. I was a staircase wit and my office was a handkerchief. 

Music: And just one more thing, critic Ted Gioia shares his 12 favorite problems, such as how can music change lives and how can artists sustain creativity.