15 Facts About Lisel Mueller

Lisel Mueller's family fled the Nazi regime, and she arrived in the US in 1939 at the age of 15.

Lisel Mueller worked as a literary critic and taught at the University of Chicago, Elmhurst College and Goddard College.

Lisel Mueller began writing poetry in the 1950s and published her first collection in 1965, after years of self-study.

Lisel Mueller received awards including the National Book Award in 1981 and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997, as the only German-born poet awarded that prize.

Lisel Mueller's father, Fritz C Neumann, was a high school teacher at the Gymnasium Alstertal.

Lisel Mueller emigrated, first to Italy, then to the US, where he was accepted in 1937 as a political refugee.

Lisel Mueller became a professor of French and German at Evansville College.

Lisel Mueller followed with her mother and her younger sister Ingeborg, arriving on 9 June 1939.

Lisel Mueller graduated from the University of Evansville in 1944.

Lisel Mueller's mother died in 1953, and she then began to write poetry, publishing the first small collection, Dependencies, in 1965 after twelve years of self-studies.

Lisel Mueller made money by working as a receptionist in a doctor's office and writing book reviews for the Chicago Daily News, which hired her in the 1970s.

Lisel Mueller stopped publishing after her husband died in 2001 and her vision deteriorated.

Lisel Mueller died on February 21,2020, at the age of 96.

Lisel Mueller sometimes alludes to German fairy-tales by the Brothers Grimm, and quotes Bertold Brecht.

Lisel Mueller's poems have been described as extremely accessible, yet intricate and layered.