To the Editors:

We the undersigned express grave concern over the growing number of political arrests made in Poland during the past weeks following the arrest of Mr. Zbigniew Bujak, the underground leader of Solidarity. We call for the release of all political prisoners; in particular, we ask for the release of Dr. Zbigniew Lewicki, Head of the American Literature Department of Warsaw University, an eminent scholar and passionate advocate of American letters—a friend, acquaintance and colleague to many of us.

Walter Abish, Edward Albee, John Ashbery, Stanislaw Baranczak, John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Saul Bellow, Joseph Brodsky, Jerome Charyn, Robert Coover, Robert Creeley, Marcus Cunliffe, Stephen Dixon, E.L. Doctorow, Raymond Federman, Leslie Fiedler, William Gaddis, William Gass, Allen Ginsberg, Janusz Glowacki, Sinda Gregory, Ihab Hassan, Richard Howard, Irving Howe, John Irving, Harold Jaffe, Frederick R. Karl, Ken Kesey, Jerome Klinkowitz, Larry McCaffery, Joseph McElroy, Norman Mailer, Clarence Major, Harry Mathews, Peter Matthiessen, Leonard Michaels, Arthur Miller, Bradford Morrow, Joyce Carol Oates, Maggie Paley, Walker Percy, Robert Pinsky, Philip Roth, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Susan Sontag, Michael Stephens, Rose Styron, William Styron, Ronald Sukenick, Calvin Tomkins, Frederic Tuten, Kurt Vonnegut, Anne Waldman, Paul West