Zmyślenie albo wielki sen / Fiction or a Long Dream

by Czesław Miłosz, Robert Hass (Translator), Anthony Miłosz (Translator)

Dwujęzyczny wybór najlepszych wierszy Czesława Miłosza

Autor wyłaniający się z tych utworów to nie posągowy klasyk i czcigodny noblista wpychany na cokół wieszcza, a młody duchem, rozdzierany sprzecznościami człowiek, któremu równie bliskie są zmysłowe namiętności i uroki świata, co metafizyczne pytania i religijne poszukiwanie prawdy – nie wolne od wątpliwości i ryzykownych wyznań.

Wybór zawiera wiersze z całej twórczości poety, od arcydzieł obecnych już w tomie Trzy zimy (1936) po wydane już pośmiertnie Wiersze ostatnie. Nie brak tu tekstów najważniejszych, tworzących poetycki kanon Miłosza – jednego z największych poetów naszych czasów, który – uczestnicząc w tłumaczeniach swoich utworów na angielski – dumny był z tego, że uważany jest za wybitnego poetę amerykańskiego.

Książka pokazać ma poetę na wskroś żywego, bliskiego współczesnej wrażliwości i mogącego dostarczać poszukującym czytelnikom wiele inspiracji, mądrości i piękna.

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Bilingual collection of Czesław Miłosz’s most essential poems

The author emerging from these poems is not a statuesque classic and the venerable Nobel Prize winner pushed onto a pedestal as a prophet, but a man full of energy, torn apart by contradictions, in whom sensual passions and cravings for wordly charms coexist with metaphysical questions and religious search for truth – not free from doubt and risky confessions.

The selection draws on the poet’s entire oeuvre, from early masterpieces edited in the first volume Three Winters (1936) to the Latest Poems, published posthumously. We will find here the most important texts belonging to the poetic canon of Miłosz – one of the greatest poets of our time – who, by participating in the process of translation of his works into English, was proud of being considered an American poet.

The book presents the poetry which is still alive, close to contemporary sensitivity and capable of giving a lot of inspiration, wisdom and beauty to the readers.

416 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2024

About the author

Czesław Miłosz was a Nobel Prize winning poet and author of Polish-Lithuanian heritage. He memorialised his Lithuanian childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley , and in the 1959 memoir Native Realm . After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius, he studied law at Stefan Batory University and in 1931 he travelled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz, a French poet of Lithuanian descent and a Swedenborgian. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934.

After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction, and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms into Polish.

Awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts."