Czesław Miłosz - Encounters with Polish Literature - S2E10

Czesław Miłosz with Irena Grudzińska (Polish Academy of Sciences)

Czesław Miłosz, poet, essayist, translator, and literary historian, won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, as a writer "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts". His work has been accurately characterized as "one of the monumental splendors of poetry in our age" (Edward Hirsch, The New York Times Book Review)

In this episode we speak with Irena Grudzińska-Gross and look particularly at Miłosz’s experience of World War II and its impact on his later poetry and writing. We consider some of his poems about the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust, his experience of war as a civilian like Białoszewski and like many victims of the current war in Ukraine. We also look briefly at his relationship to the Russian dissident poet Joseph Brodsky and his reaction to Brodsky’s now-infamous anti-Ukrainian poem.

Encounters with Polish Literature is a video series for anyone interested in literature and the culture of books and reading. Each month, host David A. Goldfarb presents a new topic in conversation with an expert on that author or book or movement in Polish literature.

Learn more about this episode, and see the biography of the guest on the Polish Cultural Institute New York's website. The linked page includes a bibliography of works in English by and about Czesław Miłosz:
https://instytutpolski.pl/newyork/202...

Access the Playlist of the entire series:
https://bit.ly/Encounters-ALL