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The Issa Valley
  • Published: 18 August 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241773925
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $24.99

The Issa Valley

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Set in a vanished rural world of ghosts and devils, this is a beautiful coming-of-age novel from the Polish Nobel Laureate

'Thomas was born in the village of Gine at that time of year when a ripe apple thumps to the ground during an afternoon lull.' So a boy's life begins in a winding river valley on the Polish-Russian border where time is measured by seasonal rhythms and ancient songs. For Thomas, the ghosts in the forest are as real as the magical water-snakes that live in the Issa; in the village he is entranced by the women with their cinched waists and the men in their long boots. But when he is shown a map, he discovers a kingdom all his own and starts to dream of leaving the valley behind.
  • Published: 18 August 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241773925
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Czeslaw Milosz

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. Born in Lithuania while it was still part of the Russian Empire, he lived much of his life in Poland or exiled in California. He was the author of one of the definitive books on totalitarianism, The Captive Mind, but also wrote with extraordinary vividness and moral authority on his childhood, his experiences under Nazism and on the tragedy of Central Europe.
CM

Also by Czeslaw Milosz

Rescue
Native Realm
Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004
Proud To Be A Mammal
New And Collected Poems 1931-2001
The Captive Mind
Captive Mind
See all

Praise for The Issa Valley

Nothing rings false in this poetic and realistic tale. Even the scenes that ... belong to another time and place will hold your attention to the end

Elie Wiesel

Not only an impressive but an immediately appealing novel ... The Issa Valley has the sensuousness and immediacy one associates with novels apparently inspired by the writer's own childhood recollections: David Copperfield and The Mill on the Floss come to mind

Times Literary Supplement

A lyrical account of a rural boyhood, dominated by family, nature and village life ... One is constantly aware of being in the hands of a master—of a talent that is original, unhurried, almost serene ... He is a remarkable writer

Larry McMurty

An idyll of immense charm and poetic depth ... It takes a masterpiece to reveal the sheer unreality of our modern creative modes and poses, and Milosz's novel is such a masterpiece

John Bayley, The New York Review of Books