#Review: Travelling on One Leg by Herta Müller

Travelling on One Leg is not an easy book, and I mean that as a compliment. Herta Müller writes about displacement, loneliness and identity in a way that feels deliberately unsettled, almost as though Irene herself is never quite able to find solid ground. A German woman who has emigrated from Romania, Irene belongs everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Germany is supposed to be home, yet it never quite feels like one.

What struck me most in these pages is Müller’s strange, dreamlike imagery. Borders become landscapes, water seems to carry things away, rooms shift in meaning, and ordinary objects suddenly feel threatening or significant. The writing can be disorienting, but that disorientation seems central to Irene’s experience. Her encounters with Franz, Thomas and the people around her are less about conventional relationships and more about her desperate attempt to understand where she belongs.

There is also a quiet sense of political unease running beneath the narrative. Müller doesn’t explain everything neatly; instead, she leaves fragments for the reader to piece together. Some passages feel almost poetic, while others are stark and uncomfortable.

This is a book for readers who enjoy literary fiction that asks questions rather than offering easy answers. It is strange, melancholic and beautifully written—and definitely not a conventional story of migration or belonging.

Find the book here.