Czeslaw Milosz's Books

Milosz's ABC's

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Man has been given to understand/ that he lives only by the grace of those in power./ Let him therefore busy himself sipping coffee, catching butterflies." So muses Polish migr poet and Nobel laureate Milosz in one of his earlier poems, and such might be the principle guiding this most recent collection of his writings. Bits and pieces of memoir are ranged in alphabetical order, making up a curious glossary of a life lived in Poland and the United States and a literary career spanning six decades. Reminiscences of Poland before, during and after WWII occupy much of the volume. Even when Milosz is chronicling his life since he settled permanently in California in 1960, after a period of exile in France, his memories center on friends made in childhood at school in Wilno. Brief character sketches are intermixed with reflections on subjects like Milosz's sense of obligation to the Polish language and Polish literary tradition, his admiration of poets like Walt Whitman and Joseph Brodsky, and, more generally, on themes like curiosity, fame and terror. It is these sections that will engage American readers, who elsewhere are likely to flounder in a sea of names. The fragments of autobiography collected in this edition represent only a selection from the texts of two Polish ABCs, and readers will be grateful for the culling. It is difficult to escape the sense thatDlike butterflies in a dusty caseDthe scraps of memory affixed here have lost their living glitter."--Summary from Publisher

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322

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374527954

ISBN 13

9780374527952

Milosz's ABC's

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Milosz's ABC's

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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322

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Macmillan

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ISBN 10

0374527954

ISBN 13

9780374527952

The Year of the Hunter

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The Year of the Hunter

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Like Native Realm, Czeslaw Milosz's autobiography written thirty years earlier, A Year of the Hunter is a "search for self-definition". A diary of one year in the Nobel laureate's life, 1987-88, it concerns itself as much with his experience of remembering - his youth in Wilno and the writers' groups of Warsaw and Paris; his life in Berkeley in the sixties; his time spent with poets and poetry - as with the actual events that shape his days. Throughout, Milosz tries to account for the discontinuity between the man he has become and the youth he remembers himself to have been. Shuttling between observations of the present and reconstructions of the past, he attempts to answer the unstated question: Given his poet's personality and his historical circumstances, has he managed to live his life decently?

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306

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374524440

ISBN 13

9780374524449

To Begin Where I Am

Selected Essays

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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To Begin Where I Am

Selected Essays

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Collects five decades of essays by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, covering topics including war, human nature, faith, communism, and Polish culture.

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484

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374528594

ISBN 13

9780374528591

Native Realm

A Search for Self-Definition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Native Realm

A Search for Self-Definition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

The autobiography of the Nobel laureate Before he emigrated to the United States, Czeslaw Milosz lived through many of the social upheavals that defined the first half of the twentieth century. Here, in this compelling account of his early life, the author sketches his moral and intellectual history from childhood to the early fifties, providing the reader with a glimpse into a way of life that was radically different from anything an American or even a Western European could know. Using the events of his life as a starting point, Native Realm sets out to explore the consciousness of a writer and a man, examining the possibility of finding glimmers of meaning in the midst of chaos while remaining true to oneself. In this beautifully written and elegantly translated work, Milosz is at his very best.

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324

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374528306

ISBN 13

9780374528300

Milosz's ABC's

Memories, Dreams and Reflections from the Nobel Laureate

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Milosz's ABC's

Memories, Dreams and Reflections from the Nobel Laureate

By: Czeslaw Milosz

The ABC book is a Polish genre, a literary form loosely composed of short, alphabetically arranged entries. Here, Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz's telling eye for detail & sharp judgments create unforgettable portraits as he combines sketches of characters from his earlier prose works & his poems with references to real historical figures. Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edward Hopper, & Arthur Koestler are among those who come under his scrutiny, along with the poets Charles Baudelaire & Robert Frost & the Polish writers Witold Gombrowicz & Zbigniew Herbert. Witty, erudite, eloquent, & outspoken, this is at once a fascinating self-portrait & a unique reflection on 20th-century politics, poetry, & prose. Winner, Nobel Prize in Lit.

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313

Published Date

ISBN 10

0756793912

ISBN 13

9780756793913

Facing The River

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Facing The River

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Czeslaw Milosz did not believe he would ever return to the river valley in which he grew up. But in the spring of 1989, exactly fifty years after he left, the new government of independent Lithuania welcomed him back to that magical region of his childhood. Many of the poems in Facing the River record his experiences there, where the river of the Issa Valley symbolizes the river of time as well as the river of mythology, over which one cannot step twice. This is the river Milosz faces while exploring ancient themes. He reflects upon the nature of imagination, human experience, good and evil--and celebrates the wonders of life on earth. In these later poems, the poems of older age, this Nobel laureate takes a long look back at the catastrophic upheavals of the twentieth century; yet despite the soberness of his themes, he writes with the lightness of touch found only in the great masters.

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Ecco

Published Date

ISBN 10

0880014547

ISBN 13

9780880014540

Selected Poems

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Selected Poems

By: Czeslaw Milosz

The Polish author utilizes literary humanism to transcend language and culture and convey his understanding of the human mind

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Page Count

128

Publisher

Ecco

Published Date

ISBN 10

0880014555

ISBN 13

9780880014557

Bells In Winter

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Bells In Winter

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Poems translated from the Polish capture the beauty of the land and the despair of man

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Ecco

Published Date

ISBN 10

0880014563

ISBN 13

9780880014564

Second Space

New Poems

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Second Space

New Poems

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz's most recent collection Second Space marks a new stage in one of the great poetic pilgrimages of our time. Few poets have inhabited the land of old age as long or energetically as Milosz, for whom this territory holds both openings and closings, affirmations as well as losses. "Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, / I felt a door opening in me and I entered / the clarity of early morning," he writes in "Late Ripeness." Elsewhere he laments the loss of his voracious vision -- "My wondrously quick eyes, you saw many things, / Lands and cities, islands and oceans" -- only to discover a new light that defies the limits of physical sight: "Without eyes, my gaze is fixed on one bright point, / That grows large and takes me in." Second Space is typically capacious in the range of voices, forms, and subjects it embraces. It moves seamlessly from dramatic monologues to theological treatises, from philosophy and history to epigrams, elegies, and metaphysical meditations. It is unified by Milosz's ongoing quest to find the bond linking the things of this world with the order of a "second space," shaped not by necessity, but grace. Second Space invites us to accompany a self-proclaimed "apprentice" on this extraordinary quest. In "Treatise on Theology," Milosz calls himself "a one day's master." He is, of course, far more than this. Second Space reveals an artist peerless both in his capacity to confront the world's suffering and in his eagerness to embrace its joys: "Sun. And sky. And in the sky white clouds. / Only now everything cried to him: Eurydice! / How will I live without you, my consoling one! / But there was a fragrant scent of herbs, the low humming of bees, / And he fell asleep with his cheek on the sun-warmed earth.

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Page Count

114

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060755245

ISBN 13

9780060755249

Selected Poems

1931-2004

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Selected Poems

1931-2004

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Selected Poems: 1931-2004 celebrates Czeslaw Milosz's lifetime of poetry. Widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of our time, Milosz is a master of expression and probing inquiry. Life opened for Czeslaw Milosz at a crossroads of civilizations in northeastern Europe. This was less a melting pot than a torrent of languages and ideas, where old folk traditions met Catholic, Protestant, Judaic, and Orthodox rites. What unfolded next around him was a century of catastrophe and madness: two world wars, revolutions, invasions, and the murder of tens of millions, all set to a cacophony of hymns, gunfire, national anthems, and dazzling lies. In the thick of this upheaval, wide awake and in awe of living, dodging shrapnel, imprisonment, and despair, Milosz tried to understand both history and the moment, with humble respect for the suffering of each individual. He read voraciously in many languages and wrote masterful poetry that, even in translation, is infused with a tireless spirit and a penetrating insight into fundamental human dilemmas and the staggering yet simple truth that "to exist on the earth is beyond any power to name." Unflinching, outspoken, timeless, and unsentimental, Milosz digs through the rubble of the past, forging a vision -- and a warning -- that encompasses both pain and joy. "His intellectual life," writes Seamus Heaney, "could be viewed as a long single combat with shape-shifting untruth.

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292

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060188677

ISBN 13

9780060188672

New and Collected Poems

1931-2001

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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New and Collected Poems

1931-2001

By: Czeslaw Milosz

New and Collected Poems: 1931–2001 celebrates seven decades of Czeslaw Milosz's exceptional career. Widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of our time, Milosz is a master of probing inquiry and graceful expression. His poetry is infused with a tireless spirit and penetrating insight into fundamental human dilemmas and the staggering yet simple truth that "to exist on the earth is beyond any power to name." Czeslaw Milosz worked with the Polish Resistance movement in Warsaw during World War II and defected to France in 1951. His work brings to bear the political awareness of an exile -- most notably in A Treatise on Poetry, a forty-page exploration of the world wars that rocked the first half of the twentieth century. His later poems also reflect the sharp political focus through which this Nobel laureate never fails to bear witness to the events that stir the world. Digging among the rubble of the past, Milosz forges a vision that encompasses pain as well as joy. His work, wrote Edward Hirsch in the New York Times Book Review, is "one of the monumental splendors of poetry in our age." With more than fifty new poems, this is an essential collection from one of the most important voices in contemporary poetry.

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Page Count

800

Publisher

Ecco

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060514485

ISBN 13

9780060514488

Emperor of the Earth

Modes of Eccentric Vision

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Emperor of the Earth

Modes of Eccentric Vision

By: Czeslaw Milosz

This stimulating collection of essays, mostly concerned with subjects taken from Slavic literatures, is at once scholarly and reflective. The volume opens with a true story, "Brognart," which is a confession of the author's remorse based on conflict with French intellectuals. "Science Fiction and the Coming of the Antichrist" concerns Vladimir Solovyov. "Krasinski's Retreat" is another return to the author's student readings, which attempts to determine how a Polish romantic poet could write in 1833 a drama on the approaching world revolution. "Joseph Conrad's Father" sketches the biography of a poet and revolutionary and also throws some light upon the fate of the hero of the last chapter.

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Page Count

272

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520045033

ISBN 13

9780520045033

The Issa Valley

A Novel

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The Issa Valley

A Novel

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Thomas, the child-protagonist of The Issa Valley, 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, The Issa Valley is a masterful work of fiction from one of our greatest living poets.

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304

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374516952

ISBN 13

9780374516956

The History of Polish Literature, Updated Edition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The History of Polish Literature, Updated Edition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

This book is a survey of Polish letters and culture from its beginnings to modern times. Czeslaw Milosz updated this edition in 1983 and added an epilogue to bring the discussion up to date.

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Page Count

628

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520044770

ISBN 13

9780520044777

Native Realm

A Search for Self-Definition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Native Realm

A Search for Self-Definition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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324

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374528306

ISBN 13

9780374528300

The Mountains of Parnassus

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The Mountains of Parnassus

By: Czeslaw Milosz

The Nobel laureate s unfinished science fiction novel available in English for the first time ever Awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1980, Czeslaw Milosz was one of the twentieth century s most esteemed poets and essayists. This outstanding translation of his only hitherto unavailable work is classic Milosz and a necessary companion volume for scholars and general readers seeking a deeper understanding of his themes. Written in the 1970s and published posthumously in Polish in 2012, Milosz s deliberately unfinished novel is set in a dystopian future where hierarchy, patriarchy, and religion no longer exist. Echoing the structure of The Captive Mind and written in an experimental, postmodern style, Milosz s sole work of science fiction follows four individuals: Karel, a disaffected young rebel; Lino, an astronaut who abandons his life of privilege; Petro, a cardinal racked with doubt; and Ephraim, a potential prophet in exile. The original manuscript of this work is held at the Beinecke Library, and this edition will include photographs of the draft.

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Page Count

184

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300224524

ISBN 13

9780300224528

The History of Polish Literature, Updated Edition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The History of Polish Literature, Updated Edition

By: Czeslaw Milosz

This book is a survey of Polish letters and culture from its beginnings to modern times. Czeslaw Milosz updated this edition in 1983 and added an epilogue to bring the discussion up to date.

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628

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Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520044770

ISBN 13

9780520044777

The Year of the Hunter

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The Year of the Hunter

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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306

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374524440

ISBN 13

9780374524449

To Begin Where I Am

Selected Essays

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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To Begin Where I Am

Selected Essays

By: Czeslaw Milosz

Collects five decades of essays by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, covering topics including war, human nature, faith, communism, and Polish culture.

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484

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374528594

ISBN 13

9780374528591

Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004

By: Czeslaw Milosz

This selection brings together the most beautiful and powerful of Czeslaw Milosz's poems, spanning his writing life. In verses such as 'Café' he considers the upheaval, revolutions and two world wars that he had witnessed, while 'My Faithful Mother Tongue' reflects the loyalty he felt to his native Polish language. He also remembers his schooldays in 'The World', and in 'Bypassing Rue Descartes' recalls the Paris streets of his student years, displaying both tenderness and tough-minded fury towards those who shaped his experiences. Writing not about abstract emotions, but about the horrors and beauty that he directly observed, Milosz opens our eyes to the joy-bringing potential of the poetry to which he gave his life. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

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Page Count

469

Publisher

Penguin UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

0141392312

ISBN 13

9780141392318

Road-side Dog

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Road-side Dog

By: Czeslaw Milosz

I went on a journey in order to acquaint myself with my province, in a two-horse wagon with a lot of fodder and a tin bucket rattling in the back. The bucket was required for the horses to drink from. I traveled through a country of hills and pine groves that gave way to woodlands, where swirls of smoke hovered over the roofs of houses, as if they were on fire, for they were chimneyless cabins; I crossed districts of fields and lakes. It was so interesting to be moving, to give the horses their rein, and wait until, in the next valley, a village slowly appeared, or a park with the white spot of a manor in it. And always we were barked at by a dog, assiduous in its duty. That was the beginning of the century; this is its . I have been thinking not only of the people who lived there once but also of the generations of dogs accompanying them in their everyday bustle, and one night-I don't know where it came from-in a pre-dawn sleep, that funny and tender phrase composed itself: a road-side dog." --Road-Side Dog

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Page Count

224

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374526230

ISBN 13

9780374526238

The Separate Notebooks

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The Separate Notebooks

By: Czeslaw Milosz

A selection of poetry written during and after the Second World War details the devastation, hardships, horrors, and consequences of the era

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Page Count

224

Publisher

Ecco

Published Date

ISBN 10

0880011165

ISBN 13

9780880011167

Emperor of the Earth

Modes of Eccentric Vision

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Emperor of the Earth

Modes of Eccentric Vision

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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Page Count

263

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520045033

ISBN 13

9780520045033

The Land of Ulro

By: Czeslaw Milosz

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The Land of Ulro

By: Czeslaw Milosz

This major prose work, originally published in English in 1985, is both a moving spiritual self-portrait and an unflinching inquiry into the genesis of our modern afflictions. A man who was raised a Catholic in rural Lithuania, lived through the Nazi occupation of Poland, and emerged, first in Europe and then in America, as one of our most important men of letters, speaks here of the inherited dilemmas of our civilization in a voice recognizable for its honesty and passion.

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304

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374519374

ISBN 13

9780374519377

On the Abolition of All Political Parties

By: Simone Weil

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On the Abolition of All Political Parties

By: Simone Weil

An NYRB Classics Original Simone Weil—philosopher, activist, mystic—is one of the most uncompromising of modern spiritual masters. In “On the Abolition of All Political Parties” she challenges the foundation of the modern liberal political order, making an argument that has particular resonance today, when the apathy and anger of the people and the self-serving partisanship of the political class present a threat to democracies all over the world. Dissecting the dynamic of power and propaganda caused by party spirit, the increasing disregard for truth in favor of opinion, and the consequent corruption of education, journalism, and art, Weil forcefully makes the case that a true politics can only begin where party spirit ends. This volume also includes an admiring portrait of Weil by the great poet Czeslaw Milosz and an essay about Weil’s friendship with Albert Camus by the translator Simon Leys.

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New York Review of Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1590177908

ISBN 13

9781590177907

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