Russian · 1940–1996
Joseph Brodsky won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature for "an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity." The Russian-American poet was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and eventually became U.S. Poet Laureate. Brodsky wrote in Russian and English, producing essays as accomplished as his verse. His work examined exile, language, and the consolations of classical form.