Beinecke Library announces the opening of its latest web exhibition, Exile as Destiny: Czesław Miłosz and America. The web gallery includes selections from the full exhibition, which was on view October 24 through December 17, 2011.

Exile as Destiny celebrates the centennial of Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004), Polish poet, novelist, diplomat, and Nobel Laureate, with an exhibition drawn from the library’s holdings. The manuscripts, documents, and photographs on display document Miłosz’s great works of literature and also reveal lesser-known aspects of Miłosz’s multifaceted relationship with America, with his adopted home in California, with fellow émigré authors, and with the English language.

Researchers are welcome to consult the Czesław Miłosz Papers (GEN MSS 661) at the Beinecke. The papers consist of writings, correspondence, photographs, personal papers, audio material, and printed material (including newspaper clippings, printed ephemera, and clan- destine samizdat publications), spanning the years 1880–2000, with the bulk of the material dating from 1940 to 1989. While some writings, photographs, and personal documents predate the Second World War, the earliest correspondence dates from 1946.

For further information about the Czesław Miłosz Papers and other collections of Eastern European émigré literature (including the papers of Joseph Brodsky, Aleksander Wat, Witold Gombrowicz, and Tomas Venclova), please contact the Beinecke Library Reference Staff.

Image: Photograph of Czesław Miłosz reading the journal Kultura, 1951