The Passport

The Passport (German: Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt) is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Herta Müller, published in German in 1986. The German title (literally, "Man is a great pheasant in the world") refers to a saying in Romania. The novel, one of several for which the author was known when winning the Nobel in 2009, tells the story of a village miller in a German-speaking village in the Banat in Romania, who applies for permission to emigrate to West Germany. The novel was published in English by Serpent's Tail in 1989, the first of Müller's novels to be offered in direct translation.

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