Milosz: A Biography

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Maps -- Introduction by Michael Parker -- 1. The Garden of Eden, 1911-1920 -- 'Darkness ... split by distant flashes, illuminations' -- The Earthly Paradise -- Good and Bad Blood -- A Grenade under the Bed -- 2. The Young Man and the Mysteries, 1921-1929 -- The Apartment with Fig-Plants -- Tomcat -- Doctor Catchfly -- Manichean Poisons -- Early Literary Tastes (and Russian Roulette) -- Inside the Lodge -- The Rushing Heraclitean River -- 3. Black Ariel, 1930-1934 -- 'I devote too little time to study' -- Egg-Man -- The Cezary Baryka Complex -- Friday Seminars, Literary Wednesdays -- Leviathan's Wardens -- A Bridge Suspended in Mid-Air -- The Devil's See-Saw -- 'If early love had lasted ... ' -- 'To the left, to the right' -- 4. The Country of the First Emigration, 1935-1939 -- 'A certain student in the city of Paris' -- 'The whole cosmos revolves within us' -- 'On black meadows' -- Publican -- 'A handful of unearthly truths' -- 'Siena descends into gleams' -- 'In my homeland, to which I will not return' -- Warsaw Friendships -- Janka -- Coming Down to Earth -- A Blood-Red Star -- 5. Voices of Poor People, 1939-1945 -- Medals in the Suitcase -- Reflections on the Inferno -- The Theory of the Last Złoty -- Miranda's Island -- Gniewosz -- 'A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto' -- Noah's Ark -- 6. In Partibus Daemonis, 1945-1951 -- 'We are from Lublin' -- Robinson Crusoe from Warsaw -- A Pact with the Devil -- Mother's Grave -- Rescue -- Chochoły -- 'A passion for doing something useful' -- Open-Source Intelligence -- 'We are slaves here!' -- Dry Flame -- Slaughterhouse -- 7. A Story of One Particular Suicide Case, 1951-1960 -- 'And you are a deserter' -- Rock Bottom -- 'The enemy of order-humankind' -- Exorcisms -- Daughter of Prophets -- 'Beyond tears'

'Enough of this lethargy and fighting' -- 'To be able to earn a living through writing' -- Les grands seigneurs -- 'To you, sweetheart, I cannot say hello' -- Eternal Moment -- A Place on Earth -- 8. The Magic Mountain, 1961-1980 -- Grizzly Peak -- Settling Accounts on Two Fronts -- Wilderness -- Letters to Oneself -- An American in Paris -- Second Space -- Prisoners of Ulro -- 'Perhaps only my reverence will save me' -- 'One of the greatest poets of our time, if not the greatest' -- Job -- 9. The Nobel and the Poet's Later Years, 1980-2004 -- Remembering the Wounds -- 'This crown keeps slipping over my ears' -- Heloise -- 'I will haunt you with my strange love' -- The Dragon -- Provinces -- 'One bright point' -- Chronology -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgements -- Illustration Credits -- Index -- Photographs 1 -- Photographs 2