The Captive Mind

Author Bio: Czeslaw Milosz

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) was born in Szetejnie, Lithuania, and made his high school and university studies in Wilno, then belonging to Poland. A cofounder of a literary group Zagary, he made his literary debut in 1930, published two volumes of poetry in the 1930s, and worked for Polish Radio. Throughout most of the Second World War, he spent his time in Warsaw working for the Polish resistance movement. In the diplomatic service of the Polish People’s Republic since 1945, Milosz broke with the government in 1951 and settled in France. Invited by the University of California, he moved to Berkeley in 1960, becoming a professor of Slavic languages and literatures the following year. In 1981 he was appointed to the Eliot Norton Chair at Harvard University. Among his many prizes and honors are the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Berkeley Citation (equivalent to an honorary PhD), the Nobel Prize in Literature, and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.