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In a letter written years later to his former instructor, he explained that his leftist opinions on Polish politics “did not mean that I am in the least attracted to some internationalism or cosmopolitanism. During the time, she was a child and he a student of her father, Manfred Kridl, a professor of Polish literature in Wilno (now Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania) the site of a major Polish university.Īlthough Miłosz graduated from Wilno University with a law degree, he did not practice law. The story begins, though, “Way Back in Wilno,” where Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier met Miłosz prior to World War II.

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To reveal the full depth of the poet… this collection of essays provides perspectives from those who knew the multi-dimensional man and his multi-faceted contribution to poetry in general and Polish literature in particular. Haven lists a virtual Who’s Who of poets who thrived as translators under Miłosz’s tutelage – Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, and Richard Lourie – each of whom has contributed greatly to the literary community and to the insightful essays in this book. In the “Introduction,” for example, editor Cynthia L. To reveal the full depth of the poet, however, this collection of essays provides perspectives from those who knew the multi-dimensional man and his multi-faceted contribution to poetry in general and Polish literature in particular.

When a great poet such as Czesław Miłosz stands high on the literary scene, a first impression may merely show a cardboard cutout of a celebrity recognized by bushy eyebrows above clear, blue eyes and the booming sound effects of hearty laughter. This vital collection reveals the fascinating life story of the man Joseph Brodsky called ‘one of the greatest poets of our time, perhaps the greatest.'”

The earliest in this collection of thirty-two memoirs begins in the 1930s, and the latest takes readers to within a few days of Miłosz’s death. In 1980 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. A poet, translator, and prose writer, Miłosz was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1961 to 1998. Miłosz’s œuvre is complex, rooted in twentieth-century eastern European history. An Invisible Rope: Portraits of Czesław Miłosz presents a collection of remembrances from his colleagues, his students, and his fellow writers and poets in America and Poland. “Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) often seemed austere and forbidding to Americans, but those who got to know him found him warm, witty, and endlessly enriching.