[close] Perhaps my ABC's are instead of: instead of a novel, instead of an essay on the twentieth century, instead of a memoir. Each of the individuals remembered here sets into motion a network of mutual allusions and interdependencies linked to the facts of my century.

The ABC book is a Polish genre, a loose form composed of short, alphabetical entries. In Czeslaw Milosz's conception, the ABC book becomes a sort of hybrid autobiographical reference book, combining citations of characters from his earlier prose works and poems with references to real historical figures-like Camus, Cézanne, Edward Hopper, Arthur Koestler, and Mark Edelman; the Polish writers Gombrowicz and Herbert; and the poets Baudelaire and Frost-who were particularly influential during his formative years, to places, and to broader topics such as "The City," "Unhappiness," and "Money." Another fascinating entry in Milosz's bold opus, Milosz's ABC's is an engaging tribute to a brilliant mind. [close]