The Fox Was Ever the Hunter (26 page)

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

 

T
HE
F
OX
W
AS
E
VER THE
H
UNTER.
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

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.

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.

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