Poets (from left) Seamus Heaney, Wislawa Szymborska and Tomas Venclova at the First Milosz Festival in Krakow. Photo: John Beauchamp

Members of the Commission for Culture and the Media in the Polish Parliament have forwarded to the Speaker a draft motion to declare 2011 the Year of Czeslaw Milosz.

June 30, 2011 will mark the birth centenary of Poland’s Nobel Prize winning poet. The document describes Milosz as one of the most prominent writers of our time, who has made a lasting contribution to 20th century literature.

The writer’s birth centenary has already been included in the UNESCO-sponsored list of anniversaries. In addition to Poland, the Milosz Year will be marked in Lithuania, where he was born, in the United States, where he lived for many years, and in such countries as France, Israel and Russia.

Poland’s Book Institute has already opened a website with updated information on all events and initiatives connected with the Miłosz Year. The second edition of the Milosz Festival is to be held in Krakow in May 2011.

Czeslaw Miłosz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. He died in 2004 at the age of 93. In 1951-89 he lived in exile as a political émigré, first in France and then in the United States. (mk/jb)

Source: PAP

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