A comprehensive selection of essays--some never before translated into English--by the Nobel Laureate. "To Begin Where I Am" brings together a rich sampling of poet Czeslaw Milosz's prose writings. Spanning more than a half century, from an impassioned essay on human nature, wartime atrocities, and their challenge to ethical beliefs, written in 1942 in the form of a letter to his friend Jerzy Andrzejewski, to brief biographical sketches and poetic prose pieces from the late 1990s, this volume presents Milosz the prose writer in all his multiple, beguiling guises. The incisive, sardonic analyst of the seductive power of communism is also the author of tender, elegiac portraits of friends famous and obscure; the witty commentator on Polish complexes writes lyrically of the California landscape. Two great themes predominate in these essays, several of which have never appeared before in English: Milosz's personal struggle to sustain his religious faith, and his unswerving allegiance to a poetry that is "on the side of man."

切斯瓦夫•米沃什（Czesław Miłosz） 波兰著名诗人、散文家、文学史家。1911年出生于波兰第一共和国的立陶宛。曾荣获波兰雅盖沃大学、美国哈佛大学、意大利罗马大学等近十座世界知名学府的荣誉博士学位及各种勋章。1978年获俗有小诺贝尔奖之称的诺斯达特国际文学奖。1980年获诺贝尔文学奖，瑞典文学院在对他的授奖词中说：“他在自己的全部创作中，以毫不妥协的深刻性揭示了人在充满剧烈矛盾的世界上所遇到的威胁。”2004年8月在波兰克拉科夫逝世，享年九十三岁。

黄灿然 诗人，批评家。现居深圳洞背村。著有《必要的角度》《格拉斯的烟斗》《奇迹集》等，译有《关于他人的痛苦》《论摄影》《同时》《新千年文学备忘录》《如何读，为什么读》《诗的见证》《内心活动》《小于一》《希尼三十年文选》《开垦地》等。