Czesław Miłosz won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature for a body of poetry and prose shaped by exile, history, and cultural identity.
Miłosz was born in 1911 in what is now Lithuania and wrote primarily in Polish. During the Second World War he lived under the German occupation of Warsaw, later served as a diplomat for communist Poland, and defected to the West in 1951.
The Swedish Academy cited his ability to express the exposed condition of humanity in a world of severe conflicts. His work combines philosophical reflection, historical memory, and close attention to moral responsibility.
Miłosz spent much of his later life in the United States, where he taught at the University of California, Berkeley. He is distinct from Wislawa Szymborska, another Polish Nobel poet, who won in 1996.