Polish cultural attaché in Paris and Washington, anti-Stalinism.

Czeslaw Milosz  was born in Seteiniai, Lithuania. His father Aleksander Milosz was a civil engineer, and his mother was called Weronika, née Kunat. He attended high-school and university in Wilno, then a part of Poland. He was a co-founder of a literary group called `Zagary` and he made his literary début in 1930s publishing two volumes of poetry. At this time he also worked for the Polish radio service. During most of the war he remained in Warsaw working there for the underground presses.Czeslaw joined the diplomatic service of the People`s Poland in 1945 but he broke with the government in 1951 and settled in France where he wrote several books in prose. In 1953 he was awarded the "Prix Littéraire Européen".

In 1960 he was invited to the USA by the University of California and he moved to Berkeley where he became, in 1961, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

He was presented with an award for poetry translations from the Polish P.E.N. Club in Warsaw in 1974. A Guggenheim Fellowship for poetry followed in 1976. In 1977 he received an honorary degree Doctor of Letters from the University of Michigan and the following year he won the "Neustadt International Prize for Literature" and the same year received the "Berkeley Citation" (an equivalent of a honorary Ph.D.) in 1978; nominated by the Academic Senate as "Research Lecturer" of 1979/1980.

He won the Nobel Proze for Literature in 1980.