The Lithuanian Parliament has declared 2011 the Year of Czesław Miłosz, the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet who was born in Lithuania.

Next year will mark the centenary of Miłosz’s birth and was the author of The Captive Mind (1953)one of the best-known works on life under communism.

Valentinas Stundys, chairman of the parliamentary commission for education, science and culture, has said that as a poet of world-wide reputation Miłosz deserves to be honoured in the country of his birth with special events focusing on his life and literary output.

The Parliament in Vilnius has asked the government to set up a commission to prepare a programme of the Miłosz Year. The proposed budget for the purpose is around 230, 000 euro.

Czesław Miłosz defected from Poland to the West in 1951. In 1970 he became a U.S. citizen. He received the Nobel Prize in 1980. He died in Krakow in 2004, aged 93. (mk)