Conversations with Czeslaw Milosz

The suppression of freedoms in countries under Soviet domination is comparable to the misery Russia endured under the Tartar yoke, charges this Lithuanian-born poet-essayist. The outspoken Nobel laureate describes Poland's ""hideous'' loss of sovereignty in 1945. He reminisces about the Poles' optimism during their brief period of independence between the two world wars and explains why he considers Marxism a philosophy for simple souls. These revealing, leisurely conversations proceed in autobiographical fashion, from the public steam baths to Wilno to Paris of the '30s, writing poetry in the shadow of fascism, the trauma of Nazi occupation and his flight to the University of California at Berkeley. In these talks, Milosz, who has always used poetry as a tool to think about reality, illuminates the creative process that led to his incantations and poems of the ironic and grotesque. Czarnecka is a New York journalist, Fiut a Polish literature specialist. First serial to the New York Times Book Review. (September 21)