{"product_id":"the-issa-valley-9780374516956","title":"The Issa Valley","description":"\u003cp\u003eThomas, the child-protagonist of \u003ci\u003eThe Issa Valley\u003c\/i\u003e, is subject to both the contradictions of nature in this severe northern setting and sometimes enchanting, sometimes brutal timbre of village life. There are the deep pine and spruce forests, the grouse and the deer, and the hunter's gun. There is Magdalena, the beautiful mistress of the village priest, whose suicide unleashes her ghost to haunt the parish. There are also the loving grandparents with whom Thomas lives, who provide a balance of the not-quite-Dostoevskian devils that visit the villagers. In the end, Thomas is severed from his childhood and the Issa River, and leaves prepared for adventures beyond his valley. Poetic and richly imagined, \u003ci\u003eThe Issa Valley\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterful work of fiction from one of our greatest living poets.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCzeslaw Milosz \u003c\/b\u003eis the winner of the 1978 Neustadt International Prize in Literature and the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. Since 1962 he has been a professor, now emeritus, of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent publications are \u003ci\u003eFacing the River\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eStriving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eRoad-side Dog\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Berkeley, California, and Krakow, Poland.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Strauss \u0026 Giroux-3pl","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50514077417746,"sku":"9780374516956","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2662582b-38a8-475f-8473-532833c85173.jpg?v=1730972619","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-issa-valley-9780374516956","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}