Writing in Polish, Czesław Miłosz is mainly considered a Polish writer, although he lived in the United States of America since 1960, and became a citizen in 1970. In 1980, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Miłosz is mainly remembered as a poet, but has written a very considerable number of novels, essays and non-fiction works.

Proud to be a mammal. Essays on war, faith and memory, published in Penguin series of Central European Classics. The publisher also attached the time period 1942-97 to the book, although this does not appear on the title page. While the essays in the collection clearly relate to culture and life in "Central Europe", if Poland and Lithuania may be considered as such, and to the author's life experience over that period, these epithets are slightly misleading. In fact, in many of the essays, Miłosz mentions living though his eighth or even ninth decade, which means that these essays bolong to his latest productions, looking back on his life experience during that period.

The collection starts with a long essay, situated during the early occupation of Poland by the Nazis in 1941. It describes how the author fled from Russia occupied Poland, into Nazi occupied Poalnd and from thence to Warsaw. This essay has a dual purpose of showing the ethnic and cultural roots of the author, as coming from a region which alternately belonged to Lithuania, Russia, and Poland, and demonstrate which uncanny amount of luck the author had in escaping the enemy. Subsequent essays describe cultural aspects of the region the author belongs to, such as a description and explanation of street names of Vilnius ("Wilno"). The essay "Proud to be a mammal" positions the author clearly with the believers in evolution, rather than creationism. The essay shows that, although the author grew up as a catholic, his outlook in life has for a long time tended to be more scientific. But in the final essays, there is a discernable return to religious themes, and the author's view on faith.

As most of the essays were written during the last period of the author's life, rather than forming a selection of essays collected over the period of his life, it must be assumed that the author's religious views are expressed through the earlier essays as well as the later essays. Although the essays are apparently on light and very various topics, they are connected and unified by a very strong under current. The reader can still experience that the role of faith is stronger in the later essays, or, in other words, that the role of faith changed in the author's life. Nonetheless, while the early essays seem to suggest that man's actions largely determine the outcomes, there is already the strong suggestion that an uncanny amount of luck might be seen as fate.

Proud to be a mammal. Essays on war, faith and memory is a very strong collection of essays, moving, and fascinating for readers who are interested to contemplate the development of faith over a difficult life experience. ( )