Milosz was a poet in residence for a year in my department when I was a graduate student. I was very lucky. And I had a random encounter with Seamus Heaney when we shared a cab to the airport!
I thought I was a pretty deep thinker until I met some towering intellects. Cynthia Haven is clearly one of those. My early literary education was 'Dick and Jane'. Most of my literary education consists of books onto which I stumbled, late enough in life to have the cognitive maturity to decode the themes, meanings, and implications by myself. I've never been in a lit class where an instructor broke down a book. I have some catching up to do.
”Or this: an ink-stained wooden table in Luxembourg where Simone Weil, Albert Camus, and Miłosz once gathered under Madame Weil’s roof.” What a gathering to imagine — the lecture sounds fascinating. Wasn't aware of Cynthia Haven's writing, so this interview was a real treat to come across, thank you. Will eagerly seek out ”Czeslaw Milosz: a California Life;” have written recently about the experience of learning that he had spent the 1970s there.
Hope you enjoy the book! Here's what one of America’s foremost critics, Leon Wieseltier, said about it: “Cynthia Haven’s book is delicious. She evokes so much so vividly and so intelligently; for me her pages were a restoration of a richer and less lonely time. And her intuition is right: Czeslaw Milosz and California are indeed a chapter in each other’s history.”
I was in Kraków last summer for the publication of the Polish edition, published by Miłosz's favored publisher, Znak. It was selling briskly. I'm glad Poland is getting to know the American Miłosz.
Milosz was a poet in residence for a year in my department when I was a graduate student. I was very lucky. And I had a random encounter with Seamus Heaney when we shared a cab to the airport!
Oh, well done! One of the best interviews I’ve read this week, and one to hold onto!
I thought I was a pretty deep thinker until I met some towering intellects. Cynthia Haven is clearly one of those. My early literary education was 'Dick and Jane'. Most of my literary education consists of books onto which I stumbled, late enough in life to have the cognitive maturity to decode the themes, meanings, and implications by myself. I've never been in a lit class where an instructor broke down a book. I have some catching up to do.
Enjoyable read. Thank you.
”Or this: an ink-stained wooden table in Luxembourg where Simone Weil, Albert Camus, and Miłosz once gathered under Madame Weil’s roof.” What a gathering to imagine — the lecture sounds fascinating. Wasn't aware of Cynthia Haven's writing, so this interview was a real treat to come across, thank you. Will eagerly seek out ”Czeslaw Milosz: a California Life;” have written recently about the experience of learning that he had spent the 1970s there.
Hope you enjoy the book! Here's what one of America’s foremost critics, Leon Wieseltier, said about it: “Cynthia Haven’s book is delicious. She evokes so much so vividly and so intelligently; for me her pages were a restoration of a richer and less lonely time. And her intuition is right: Czeslaw Milosz and California are indeed a chapter in each other’s history.”
I was in Kraków last summer for the publication of the Polish edition, published by Miłosz's favored publisher, Znak. It was selling briskly. I'm glad Poland is getting to know the American Miłosz.
Have started reading, with great interest.
Am looking forward — it sounds fascinating.
Thoroughly enjoyed this! Thank you!
Enjoyed this!
How cool that Cynthia met and knew the authors she has now written about!
Looking forward to reading this!
I am a fan of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and yet her harrowing escape is admirable too. Was C.S. Lewis an anti-communist?
The one thing I’ve always wondered, was Milosz the facial model for the Grinch?