Jerzy Kosinski
Encyclopedia
Jerzy Kosiński (ˈjɛʐɨ kɔˈɕiɲskʲi; June 14, 1933 – May 3, 1991), born Józef Lewinkopf, was an award-winning Polish American
novelist, and two-time President of the American Chapter of P.E.N.
He was known for various novels, among them The Painted Bird
(1965) and Being There (1971). Being There
was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 1979.
, he lived in central Poland under a false identity, Jerzy Kosiński, which his father gave to him. A Roman Catholic priest
issued him a forged baptism
al certificate. The Kosiński family survived the Holocaust
thanks to local villagers who offered assistance to Jewish Poles
, often at great personal risk (the penalty for assisting Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland was death). Kosiński's father received help not only from Polish town leaders and churchmen, but also from individuals such as Marianna Pasiowa, a member of the Polish underground network helping Jews evade capture. The family lived openly in Dąbrowa Rzeczycka
near Stalowa Wola
, and attended church in nearby Wola Rzeczycka
, obtaining support from villagers in Kępa Rzeczycka
. They were sheltered temporarily by a Catholic family in Rzeczyca Okrągła. The young Jerzy even served as an altar boy in a local church.
After World War II, Kosiński remained with his parents in Poland, moved to Jelenia Góra
, and by the age of 22 earned two graduate degrees in history
and sociology
at the University of Łódź. He worked as an associate professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences
. Kosinski also studied in the Soviet Union
, and served as a sharpshooter in the Polish Army.
To emigrate to the United States in 1957, he created a fake foundation which supposedly sponsored him. He later claimed that he forged the letters from eminent Polish communist authorities guaranteeing his loyal return, which were needed for anyone leaving the communist country at that time.
After taking odd jobs to get by, such as driving a truck, Kosiński graduated from Columbia University
. In 1965, he became an American citizen. He received grants from Guggenheim Fellowship
in 1967, Ford Foundation
in 1968, and the American Academy
in 1970. The grants allowed him to write a political non-fiction book that opened new doors of opportunity. In the United States he became a lecturer at Yale
, Princeton
, Davenport University
, and Wesleyan
.
In 1962, Kosiński married American steel heiress
Mary Hayward Weir
. They were divorced in 1966, and after Weir died in 1968 from brain cancer, Kosiński was left nothing in her will
. He later fictionalized this marriage in his novel Blind Date, speaking of Weir under pseudonym Mary–Jane Kirkland. Kosiński went on to marry Katherina "Kiki" von Fraunhofer, a marketing consultant and descendant of Bavaria
n aristocracy.
Kosiński committed suicide
on May 3, 1991, by wrapping a plastic bag around his head and suffocating to death. His suicide note
read: "I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity."
during World War II
and taking refuge among a series of people, many of whom are brutally cruel and abusive, either to him or to others.
Soon after the book was published in the US, Kosiński was accused by the then-Communist
Polish government of being anti-Polish, especially following the regime's 1968 anti-Semitic campaign. The book was banned in Poland from its initial publication until the fall of the Communist government in 1989. When it was finally printed, thousands of Poles in Warsaw lined up for as long as eight hours to purchase copies of the work autographed by Kosiński. Polish literary critic and University of Warsaw
professor Paweł Dudziak remarked that "in spite of the unclear role of its author,The Painted Bird is an achievement in English literature." He stressed that since the book is a work of fiction and does not document real-world events, accusations of anti-Polish sentiment may result only from taking it too literally.
The book received recommendations from Elie Wiesel
who wrote in The New York Times Book Review
that it was "one of the best... Written with deep sincerity and sensitivity." Richard Kluger
, reviewing it for Harper's Magazine
wrote: "Extraordinary... literally staggering ... one of the most powerful books I have ever read." Jonathon Yardley, reviewing it for The Miami Herald
, wrote: "Of all the remarkable fiction that emerged from World War II, nothing stands higher than Jerzy Kosiński's The Painted Bird. A magnificent work of art, and a celebration of the individual will. No one who reads it will forget it; no one who reads it will be unmoved by it."
However, reception of the book was not uniformly positive. After being translated into Polish, it was read by the people with whom the Lewinkopf family lived during the war. They recognized names of Jewish children sheltered by them (who also survived the war), depicted in the novel as victims of abuse by characters based on them. Also, according to Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski
, The Painted Bird was Kosiński's most successful attempt at profiteering from the Holocaust by maintaining an aura of a chronicle. In addition, several claims that Kosiński committed plagiarism in writing The Painted Bird were leveled against him. (See 'Criticism' section, below.)
in 1969.
American novelist David Foster Wallace
described Steps as a "collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that's like nothing else anywhere ever". Wallace continued in praise: "Only Kafka's fragments get anywhere close to where Kosiński goes in this book, which is better than everything else he ever did combined." Samuel Coale, in a 1974 discussion of Kosiński's fiction, wrote that "the narrator of Steps for instance, seems to be nothing more than a disembodied voice howling in some surrealistic wilderness."
The novel was made into a 1979 movie
directed by Hal Ashby
, starring Peter Sellers
, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the role. The screenplay
was co-authored by award-winning screenwriter
Robert C. Jones
with Kosiński. The film won the 1981 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
(Film) Best Screenplay Award, as well as the 1980 Writers Guild of America Award
(Screen) for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium. It was also nominated for the 1980 Golden Globes Best Screenplay Award (Motion Picture).
, an American writer, essayist, editor
and translator
, Kosiński was not the author of The Painted Bird. Weinberger alleged in his 2000 book Karmic Traces that Kosiński was not fluent in English at the time of its writing.
In a review of Jerzy Kosiński: A Biography by James Park Sloan, D. G. Myers, Associate Professor of English at Texas A&M University wrote "For years Kosinski passed off The Painted Bird as the true story of his own experience during the Holocaust. Long before writing it he regaled friends and dinner parties with macabre tales of a childhood spent in hiding among the Polish peasantry. Among those who were fascinated was Dorothy de Santillana, a senior editor at Houghton Mifflin
, to whom Kosinski confided that he had a manuscript based on his experiences. Upon accepting the book for publication Santillana said, "It is my understanding that, fictional as the material may sound, it is straight autobiography." Although he backed away from this claim, Kosinski never wholly disavowed it."
M. A. Orthofer addressed Weinberger's assertion by saying:
"Kosinski was, in many respects, a fake – possibly near as genuine a one as Weinberger could want. (One aspect of the best fakes is the lingering doubt that, possibly, there is some authenticity behind them – as is the case with Kosinski.) Kosinski famously liked to pretend he was someone he wasn't (as do many of the characters in his books), he occasionally published under a pseudonym, and, apparently, he plagiarized and forged left and right."
Kosiński himself addressed these claims in the introduction to the 1976 reissue of The Painted Bird, saying that "Well-intentioned writers critics, and readers sought facts to back up their claims that the novel was autobiographical. They wanted to cast me in the role of spokesman for my generation, especially for those who had survived the war; but for me survival was an individual action that earned the survivor the right to speak only for himself. Facts about my life and my origins, I felt, should not be used to test the book's authenticity, any more than they should be used to encourage readers to read The Painted Bird. Furthermore, I felt then, as I do now, that fiction and autobiography are very different modes."
, claiming that much of his work was derivative of prewar books unfamiliar to English readers, and that Being There was a plagiarism of Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy — The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma
— a 1932 Polish bestseller by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz. They also alleged Kosiński wrote The Painted Bird in Polish, and had it secretly translated into English. The report claimed that Kosiński's books had actually been ghost-written by "assistant editors", finding stylistic
differences among Kosiński's novels. Kosiński, according to them, had depended upon his free-lance editors for "the sort of composition that we usually call writing." American biographer James Sloan
notes that New York poet, publisher and translator, George Reavey
, claimed to have written The Painted Bird for Kosiński.
The article found a more realistic picture of Kosiński's life during the Holocaust — a view which was supported by biographers Joanna Siedlecka
and Sloan. The article asserted that The Painted Bird, assumed by some to be semi-autobiographical, was largely a work of fiction. The information showed that rather than wandering the Polish countryside, as his fictional character did, Kosiński spent the war years in hiding with a Polish Catholic family.
Terence Blacker
, a profitable English publisher (who helped publish Kosiński's books) and author of children's books and mysteries for adults, wrote in his article published in The Independent
in 2002:
D.G. Myers responded to Blacker's
assertions in his review of Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography by James Park Sloan:
Journalist John Corry
, wrote a 6,000-word feature article in The New York Times
in November 1982, responding and defending Kosiński, which appeared on the front page of the Arts and Leisure section. Among other things, Corry alleged that reports claiming that "Kosinski was a plagiarist in the pay of the C.I.A. were the product of a Polish Communist disinformation
campaign."
Kosiński himself responded that he had never maintained that the book was autobiographical, even though years earlier he confided to Houghton Mifflin editor Santillana that his manuscript "draws upon a childhood spent, by the casual chances of war, in the remotest villages of Eastern Europe
." In 1988, he wrote The Hermit of 69th Street, in which he sought to demonstrate the absurdity of investigating prior work by inserting footnotes for practically every term in the book. "Ironically," wrote theatre critic Lucy Komisar, "possibly his only true book... about a successful author who is shown to be a fraud."
Despite repudiation of the Village Voice allegations in detailed articles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications, Kosiński remained tainted. "I think it contributed to his death," said Zbigniew Brzezinski
, a friend and fellow Polish exile.
during 1971–73, and The Dick Cavett Show
in 1974, was a guest on the talk radio show of Long John Nebel
, posed half-naked for a cover photograph by Annie Leibovitz
for The New York Times Magazine
in 1982, and presented the Oscar
for screenwriting in 1982.
He also played the role of Bolshevik
revolutionary and Politburo
member Grigory Zinoviev
in Warren Beatty
's film Reds. The Time
magazine critic wrote: "As Reed's Soviet nemesis, novelist Jerzy Kosinski acquits himself nicely–a tundra of ice against Reed's all-American fire." Newsweek
complimented Kosinski's "delightfully abrasive" performance.
, with whom he attended the National Film School in Łódź, and said he narrowly missed being at Polanski and Sharon Tate
's house on the night Tate was murdered by Charles Manson
's followers in 1969, due to lost luggage. His novel Blind Date discussed the Manson murders.
Kosiński was also friends with Wojciech Frykowski
and Abigail Folger
. He introduced the couple.
In 1984, Polanski denied Kosinski's story in his autobiography. Journalist John Taylor of New York Magazine believes Polanski was mistaken. "Although it was a single sentence in a 461-page book, reviewers focused on it. But the accusation was untrue: Jerzy and Kiki had been invited to stay with Tate the night of the Manson murders, and they missed being killed as well only because they stopped in New York en route from Paris because their luggage had been misdirected." The reason why Taylor believes this, is that "a friend of Kosinski's wrote a letter to the Times, which was published in the Book Review, describing the detailed plans he and Jerzy had made to meet that weekend at Polanski's house on Cielo Drive. Few people saw the letter." The NYM article does not contain the name of this friend, nor the particular issue of the Book Review in which this letter is supposed to have been published, nor names of the 'few' who may have read the letter.
's Crooked Circle Gallery (1957), and in the Andre Zarre Gallery in New York (1988). He watched surgeries, and read to terminally ill patients.
Kosiński was also very interested in polo
, and compared himself to a character from his novel Passion Play: "The character, Fabian, is at the mercy of his aging and his sexual obsession. It's my calling card. I'm 46. I'm like Fabian."
(2001), written by Davey Holmes
and originally starring Jared Harris
as Kosinski-inspired character "Jerzy Lesnewski". The most recent production being produced at the New End Theatre
in London starring George Layton
.
He also appears as one of the 'literary golems' (ghosts) in Thane Rosenbaum
's novel The Golems of Gotham
Polish American
A Polish American , is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States...
novelist, and two-time President of the American Chapter of P.E.N.
He was known for various novels, among them The Painted Bird
The Painted Bird (novel)
The Painted Bird is a controversial 1965 novel by Jerzy Kosiński which describes the world as seen by a young boy, "considered a Gypsy or Jewish stray," who wanders about small towns scattered around Central or Eastern Europe during World War II.-Major themes:The book describes the wandering...
(1965) and Being There (1971). Being There
Being There
Being There is a 1979 American comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Adapted from the 1971 novella written by Jerzy Kosinski, the screenplay was coauthored by Kosinski and Robert C. Jones. The film stars Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard A...
was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 1979.
Early life, teaching, and marriage
Kosiński, who was Jewish, was born Józef Lewinkopf in Łódź, Poland. As a child during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he lived in central Poland under a false identity, Jerzy Kosiński, which his father gave to him. A Roman Catholic priest
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
issued him a forged baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
al certificate. The Kosiński family survived the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
thanks to local villagers who offered assistance to Jewish Poles
Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust
Polish Jews were the primary victims of the German Nazi-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Polish Gentiles risked their own lives—and the lives of their families—to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people...
, often at great personal risk (the penalty for assisting Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland was death). Kosiński's father received help not only from Polish town leaders and churchmen, but also from individuals such as Marianna Pasiowa, a member of the Polish underground network helping Jews evade capture. The family lived openly in Dąbrowa Rzeczycka
Dabrowa Rzeczycka
Dąbrowa Rzeczycka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Radomyśl nad Sanem, within Stalowa Wola County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately east of Radomyśl nad Sanem, north of Stalowa Wola, and north of the regional capital...
near Stalowa Wola
Stalowa Wola
Stalowa Wola is the largest city and capital of Stalowa Wola County with a population of 64,353 inhabitants, as of June 2008. It is located in southeastern Poland in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship...
, and attended church in nearby Wola Rzeczycka
Wola Rzeczycka
Wola Rzeczycka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Radomyśl nad Sanem, within Stalowa Wola County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately east of Radomyśl nad Sanem, north of Stalowa Wola, and north of the regional capital Rzeszów.-References:...
, obtaining support from villagers in Kępa Rzeczycka
Kepa Rzeczycka
Kępa Rzeczycka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Radomyśl nad Sanem, within Stalowa Wola County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately south-east of Radomyśl nad Sanem, north of Stalowa Wola, and north of the regional capital...
. They were sheltered temporarily by a Catholic family in Rzeczyca Okrągła. The young Jerzy even served as an altar boy in a local church.
After World War II, Kosiński remained with his parents in Poland, moved to Jelenia Góra
Jelenia Góra
----Jelenia Góra is a city in Lower Silesia, south-western Poland. The name of the city means "deer mountain" in Polish, Czech and German. It is close to the Krkonoše mountain range running along the Polish-Czech border – ski resorts such as Karpacz and Szklarska Poręba can be found...
, and by the age of 22 earned two graduate degrees in history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
at the University of Łódź. He worked as an associate professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences
Polish Academy of Sciences
The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, is one of two Polish institutions having the nature of an academy of sciences.-History:...
. Kosinski also studied in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and served as a sharpshooter in the Polish Army.
To emigrate to the United States in 1957, he created a fake foundation which supposedly sponsored him. He later claimed that he forged the letters from eminent Polish communist authorities guaranteeing his loyal return, which were needed for anyone leaving the communist country at that time.
After taking odd jobs to get by, such as driving a truck, Kosiński graduated from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. In 1965, he became an American citizen. He received grants from Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in 1967, Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
in 1968, and the American Academy
American Academy
American Academy can refer to:*American Academy in Berlin*Dubai American Academy*American Academy of Larnaca*American Academy in Rome*Üsküdar American Academy...
in 1970. The grants allowed him to write a political non-fiction book that opened new doors of opportunity. In the United States he became a lecturer at Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Davenport University
Davenport University
Davenport University is a private, non-profit, multi-location university located at 14 campuses throughout Michigan and online. It was founded in 1866 by Conrad Swensburg and currently offers Master's Degrees, Bachelor's Degrees, Associate's Degrees, diplomas, and post-grad certification programs...
, and Wesleyan
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
.
In 1962, Kosiński married American steel heiress
Beneficiary
A beneficiary in the broadest sense is a natural person or other legal entity who receives money or other benefits from a benefactor. For example: The beneficiary of a life insurance policy, is the person who receives the payment of the amount of insurance after the death of the insured...
Mary Hayward Weir
Mary Hayward Weir
Mary Hayward Weir, born Mary Emma Hayward , was an American steel heiress and socialite. She was the wealthy widow of Pittsburgh steel king Ernest T...
. They were divorced in 1966, and after Weir died in 1968 from brain cancer, Kosiński was left nothing in her will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
. He later fictionalized this marriage in his novel Blind Date, speaking of Weir under pseudonym Mary–Jane Kirkland. Kosiński went on to marry Katherina "Kiki" von Fraunhofer, a marketing consultant and descendant of Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n aristocracy.
Death
Kosiński suffered from multiple illnesses at the end of his life, and was under attack from journalists who accused him of plagiarism. By the time he reached his late 50s, he was suffering from an irregular heartbeat as well as severe physical and nervous exhaustion.Kosiński committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
on May 3, 1991, by wrapping a plastic bag around his head and suffocating to death. His suicide note
Suicide note
A suicide note or death note is a message that states the author has died by suicide, and left to be discovered and read in anticipation of suicide....
read: "I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity."
Novels
Kosiński's novels have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, and have been translated into over 30 languages, with total sales estimated at 70 million in 1991.The Painted Bird
The Painted Bird, Kosiński's controversial 1965 novel, is a fictional account that depicts the personal experiences of a boy of unknown religious and ethnic background who wanders around unidentified areas of Eastern EuropeEastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and taking refuge among a series of people, many of whom are brutally cruel and abusive, either to him or to others.
Soon after the book was published in the US, Kosiński was accused by the then-Communist
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
Polish government of being anti-Polish, especially following the regime's 1968 anti-Semitic campaign. The book was banned in Poland from its initial publication until the fall of the Communist government in 1989. When it was finally printed, thousands of Poles in Warsaw lined up for as long as eight hours to purchase copies of the work autographed by Kosiński. Polish literary critic and University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
professor Paweł Dudziak remarked that "in spite of the unclear role of its author,The Painted Bird is an achievement in English literature." He stressed that since the book is a work of fiction and does not document real-world events, accusations of anti-Polish sentiment may result only from taking it too literally.
The book received recommendations from Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
who wrote in The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
that it was "one of the best... Written with deep sincerity and sensitivity." Richard Kluger
Richard Kluger
Richard Kluger worked as a journalist before becoming an accomplished Pulitzer Prize-winning author and book publisher.-Journalism:...
, reviewing it for Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
wrote: "Extraordinary... literally staggering ... one of the most powerful books I have ever read." Jonathon Yardley, reviewing it for The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
, wrote: "Of all the remarkable fiction that emerged from World War II, nothing stands higher than Jerzy Kosiński's The Painted Bird. A magnificent work of art, and a celebration of the individual will. No one who reads it will forget it; no one who reads it will be unmoved by it."
However, reception of the book was not uniformly positive. After being translated into Polish, it was read by the people with whom the Lewinkopf family lived during the war. They recognized names of Jewish children sheltered by them (who also survived the war), depicted in the novel as victims of abuse by characters based on them. Also, according to Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski
Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski
Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski is a Polish–, Belgian– and American–educated inventor and civil and industrial engineer with 50 patents to his credit...
, The Painted Bird was Kosiński's most successful attempt at profiteering from the Holocaust by maintaining an aura of a chronicle. In addition, several claims that Kosiński committed plagiarism in writing The Painted Bird were leveled against him. (See 'Criticism' section, below.)
Steps
Steps (1968), a novel comprising scores of loosely connected vignettes, won the National Book AwardNational Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 1969.
American novelist David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...
described Steps as a "collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that's like nothing else anywhere ever". Wallace continued in praise: "Only Kafka's fragments get anywhere close to where Kosiński goes in this book, which is better than everything else he ever did combined." Samuel Coale, in a 1974 discussion of Kosiński's fiction, wrote that "the narrator of Steps for instance, seems to be nothing more than a disembodied voice howling in some surrealistic wilderness."
Being There
One of Kosiński's most significant works is Being There (1971), a satiric look at the unreality of America's media culture. It is the story of Chance the gardener, a man without many defining qualities who emerges from nowhere and suddenly becomes the heir to the throne of a Wall Street tycoon and a presidential policy adviser. His simple and straightforward responses to popular concerns are praised as visionary despite no one really understanding what he is really saying. Many questions surround his mysterious origins, and filling in the blanks in his background proves impossible.The novel was made into a 1979 movie
Being There
Being There is a 1979 American comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Adapted from the 1971 novella written by Jerzy Kosinski, the screenplay was coauthored by Kosinski and Robert C. Jones. The film stars Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard A...
directed by Hal Ashby
Hal Ashby
Hal Ashby was an American film director and film editor.-Birth and early years:Born William Hal Ashby in Ogden, Utah, Ashby grew up in a Mormon household and had a tumultuous childhood as part of a dysfunctional family which included the divorce of his parents, his father's suicide and his...
, starring Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the role. The screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
was co-authored by award-winning screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
Robert C. Jones
Robert C. Jones
Robert C. Jones , sometimes credited as Robert Jones, is a screenwriter and film editor. He received an Academy Award for the screenplay of the film Coming Home . As an editor, Jones has had notable collaborations with the directors Arthur Hiller and Hal Ashby...
with Kosiński. The film won the 1981 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
(Film) Best Screenplay Award, as well as the 1980 Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
(Screen) for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium. It was also nominated for the 1980 Golden Globes Best Screenplay Award (Motion Picture).
Criticism
According to Eliot WeinbergerEliot Weinberger
Eliot Weinberger is a contemporary American writer, essayist, editor, and translator. His work regularly appears in translation and has been published in some thirty languages...
, an American writer, essayist, editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
and translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
, Kosiński was not the author of The Painted Bird. Weinberger alleged in his 2000 book Karmic Traces that Kosiński was not fluent in English at the time of its writing.
In a review of Jerzy Kosiński: A Biography by James Park Sloan, D. G. Myers, Associate Professor of English at Texas A&M University wrote "For years Kosinski passed off The Painted Bird as the true story of his own experience during the Holocaust. Long before writing it he regaled friends and dinner parties with macabre tales of a childhood spent in hiding among the Polish peasantry. Among those who were fascinated was Dorothy de Santillana, a senior editor at Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
, to whom Kosinski confided that he had a manuscript based on his experiences. Upon accepting the book for publication Santillana said, "It is my understanding that, fictional as the material may sound, it is straight autobiography." Although he backed away from this claim, Kosinski never wholly disavowed it."
M. A. Orthofer addressed Weinberger's assertion by saying:
"Kosinski was, in many respects, a fake – possibly near as genuine a one as Weinberger could want. (One aspect of the best fakes is the lingering doubt that, possibly, there is some authenticity behind them – as is the case with Kosinski.) Kosinski famously liked to pretend he was someone he wasn't (as do many of the characters in his books), he occasionally published under a pseudonym, and, apparently, he plagiarized and forged left and right."
Kosiński himself addressed these claims in the introduction to the 1976 reissue of The Painted Bird, saying that "Well-intentioned writers critics, and readers sought facts to back up their claims that the novel was autobiographical. They wanted to cast me in the role of spokesman for my generation, especially for those who had survived the war; but for me survival was an individual action that earned the survivor the right to speak only for himself. Facts about my life and my origins, I felt, should not be used to test the book's authenticity, any more than they should be used to encourage readers to read The Painted Bird. Furthermore, I felt then, as I do now, that fiction and autobiography are very different modes."
Plagiarism allegations
In June 1982, a Village Voice report by Geoffrey Stokes and Eliot Fremont-Smith accused Kosiński of plagiarismPlagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
, claiming that much of his work was derivative of prewar books unfamiliar to English readers, and that Being There was a plagiarism of Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy — The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma
The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma
The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma is a 1932 Polish bestselling novel by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz.The book was made into a 1956 Polish film with Adolf Dymsza in the title role, then into a 1980 television miniseries starring Roman Wilhelmi and in 2002 into a comedy film starring Cezary...
— a 1932 Polish bestseller by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz. They also alleged Kosiński wrote The Painted Bird in Polish, and had it secretly translated into English. The report claimed that Kosiński's books had actually been ghost-written by "assistant editors", finding stylistic
Stylistics (linguistics)
Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...
differences among Kosiński's novels. Kosiński, according to them, had depended upon his free-lance editors for "the sort of composition that we usually call writing." American biographer James Sloan
James Park Sloan
James Park Sloan is a noted American author, critic and academic. He is currently Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago...
notes that New York poet, publisher and translator, George Reavey
George Reavey
George Reavey was a Russian-born Irish surrealist poet, publisher, translator and art collector. He was also Samuel Beckett's first literary agent. In addition to his own poetry, Reavey's translations and critical prose helped introduce 20th century Russian poetry to an English-speaking audience...
, claimed to have written The Painted Bird for Kosiński.
The article found a more realistic picture of Kosiński's life during the Holocaust — a view which was supported by biographers Joanna Siedlecka
Joanna Siedlecka
Joanna Siedlecka is a writer, reporter, member of the Polish Writers Association , and the author of 10 books, 4 collections of essays and 6 biographies....
and Sloan. The article asserted that The Painted Bird, assumed by some to be semi-autobiographical, was largely a work of fiction. The information showed that rather than wandering the Polish countryside, as his fictional character did, Kosiński spent the war years in hiding with a Polish Catholic family.
Terence Blacker
Terence Blacker
Terence Blacker is an English author, columnist, journalist, and publisher. He is the son of General Sir Cecil Hugh Blacker, and the brother of sculptor Philip Blacker....
, a profitable English publisher (who helped publish Kosiński's books) and author of children's books and mysteries for adults, wrote in his article published in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
in 2002:
"The significant point about Jerzy Kosiński was that ... his books ... had a vision and a voice consistent with one another and with the man himself. The problem was perhaps that he was a successful, worldly author who played polo, moved in fashionable circles and even appeared as an actor in Warren Beatty's Reds. He seemed to have had an adventurous and rather kinky sexuality which, to many, made him all the more suspect. All in all, he was a perfect candidate for the snarling pack of literary hangers-on to turn on. There is something about a storyteller becoming rich and having a reasonably full private life that has a powerful potential to irritate so that, when things go wrong, it causes a very special kind of joy."
D.G. Myers responded to Blacker's
Terence Blacker
Terence Blacker is an English author, columnist, journalist, and publisher. He is the son of General Sir Cecil Hugh Blacker, and the brother of sculptor Philip Blacker....
assertions in his review of Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography by James Park Sloan:
"This theory explains much: the reckless driving, the abuse of small dogs, the thirst for fame, the fabrication of personal experience, the secretiveness about how he wrote, the denial of his Jewish identity. 'There was a hollow space at the center of Kosinski that had resulted from denying his past,' Sloan writes, 'and his whole life had become a race to fill in that hollow space before it caused him to implode, collapsing inward upon himself like a burnt-out star.' On this theory, Kosinski emerges as a classic borderline personality, frantically defending himself against… all-out psychosis.
Journalist John Corry
John Corry
Colonel John Corry was an Irish politician.He was the son of Colonel James Corry and his first wife Sarah Anketill, daughter of Captain Oliver Anketill. Corry was educated at Kilkenny and Trinity College, Dublin. Corry became High Sheriff of Fermanagh in 1711...
, wrote a 6,000-word feature article in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in November 1982, responding and defending Kosiński, which appeared on the front page of the Arts and Leisure section. Among other things, Corry alleged that reports claiming that "Kosinski was a plagiarist in the pay of the C.I.A. were the product of a Polish Communist disinformation
Disinformation
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth...
campaign."
Kosiński himself responded that he had never maintained that the book was autobiographical, even though years earlier he confided to Houghton Mifflin editor Santillana that his manuscript "draws upon a childhood spent, by the casual chances of war, in the remotest villages of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
." In 1988, he wrote The Hermit of 69th Street, in which he sought to demonstrate the absurdity of investigating prior work by inserting footnotes for practically every term in the book. "Ironically," wrote theatre critic Lucy Komisar, "possibly his only true book... about a successful author who is shown to be a fraud."
Despite repudiation of the Village Voice allegations in detailed articles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications, Kosiński remained tainted. "I think it contributed to his death," said Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, a friend and fellow Polish exile.
TV, radio, film, and newspaper appearances
Kosiński appeared 12 times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny CarsonThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
during 1971–73, and The Dick Cavett Show
The Dick Cavett Show
The Dick Cavett Show has been the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks, including:* ABC daytime ...
in 1974, was a guest on the talk radio show of Long John Nebel
Long John Nebel
Long John Nebel was an influential New York City talk radio show host.From the mid 1950s until his death in 1978, Nebel was a hugely popular all-night radio host, with millions of regular listeners and what Donald Bain described as "a fanatically loyal following" to his syndicated program, which...
, posed half-naked for a cover photograph by Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz
Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.-Early life and education:Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's...
for The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
in 1982, and presented the Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for screenwriting in 1982.
He also played the role of Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
revolutionary and Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
member Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
in Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
's film Reds. The Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine critic wrote: "As Reed's Soviet nemesis, novelist Jerzy Kosinski acquits himself nicely–a tundra of ice against Reed's all-American fire." Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
complimented Kosinski's "delightfully abrasive" performance.
Friendships
Kosiński was friends with Roman PolanskiRoman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
, with whom he attended the National Film School in Łódź, and said he narrowly missed being at Polanski and Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
's house on the night Tate was murdered by Charles Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
's followers in 1969, due to lost luggage. His novel Blind Date discussed the Manson murders.
Kosiński was also friends with Wojciech Frykowski
Wojciech Frykowski
Wojciech Frykowski was a Polish actor and writer who was murdered in the home of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski by members of Charles Manson's "Family".-Early life:...
and Abigail Folger
Abigail Folger
Abigail Anne "Gibbie" Folger was an American coffee heiress, debutante, socialite, volunteer social worker, civil rights devotee and member of the prominent United States Folger family. She was the great-granddaughter of J. A. Folger, the founder of Folgers Coffee...
. He introduced the couple.
In 1984, Polanski denied Kosinski's story in his autobiography. Journalist John Taylor of New York Magazine believes Polanski was mistaken. "Although it was a single sentence in a 461-page book, reviewers focused on it. But the accusation was untrue: Jerzy and Kiki had been invited to stay with Tate the night of the Manson murders, and they missed being killed as well only because they stopped in New York en route from Paris because their luggage had been misdirected." The reason why Taylor believes this, is that "a friend of Kosinski's wrote a letter to the Times, which was published in the Book Review, describing the detailed plans he and Jerzy had made to meet that weekend at Polanski's house on Cielo Drive. Few people saw the letter." The NYM article does not contain the name of this friend, nor the particular issue of the Book Review in which this letter is supposed to have been published, nor names of the 'few' who may have read the letter.
Interests
He practiced the photographic arts, with one-man exhibitions to his credit in WarsawWarsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
's Crooked Circle Gallery (1957), and in the Andre Zarre Gallery in New York (1988). He watched surgeries, and read to terminally ill patients.
Kosiński was also very interested in polo
Polo
Polo is a team sport played on horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team. Sometimes called, "The Sport of Kings", it was highly popularized by the British. Players score by driving a small white plastic or wooden ball into the opposing team's goal using a...
, and compared himself to a character from his novel Passion Play: "The character, Fabian, is at the mercy of his aging and his sexual obsession. It's my calling card. I'm 46. I'm like Fabian."
Filmography
- Being ThereBeing ThereBeing There is a 1979 American comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Adapted from the 1971 novella written by Jerzy Kosinski, the screenplay was coauthored by Kosinski and Robert C. Jones. The film stars Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard A...
(novel and screenplay, 1979) - Reds (actor, 1981)
- The Statue of Liberty (self, 1985)
- Łódź Ghetto (film) (voice of Mordechai Chaim RumkowskiMordechai Chaim RumkowskiMordechai Chaim Rumkowski was a Polish Jew and functioned as the German Nazi-nominated head of the Ältestenrat , or Jewish authorities in the Łódź Ghetto....
, 1989) - Religion, Inc. (actor, 1989)
Awards & honors
- Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (award for best foreign work of fiction) for The Painted Bird (France)
- 1969 – National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for Steps. - 1970—Award in Literature, National Institute of Arts and Letters and American Academy of Arts and Letters.
- 1973–75—President of the American Chapter of P.E.N. Re-elected 1974, serving maximum 2 terms allowed.
- 1974—B'rith Shalom Humanitarian Freedom Award.
- 1977 – American Civil Liberties UnionAmerican Civil Liberties UnionThe American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
First Amendment Award. - 1979 – Writers Guild of America, EastWriters Guild of America, EastWriters Guild of America, East is a labor union representing writers of television and film and employees of television and radio news. The 2006 membership of the guild was 3,770....
Best Screenplay Award for Being There with award winning screenwriterScreenwriterScreenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
Robert C. JonesRobert C. JonesRobert C. Jones , sometimes credited as Robert Jones, is a screenwriter and film editor. He received an Academy Award for the screenplay of the film Coming Home . As an editor, Jones has had notable collaborations with the directors Arthur Hiller and Hal Ashby...
. - 1980—Polonia Media Perspectives Achievement Award.
- 1981 – British Academy of Film and Television ArtsBritish Academy of Film and Television ArtsThe British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
(BAFTA) Best Screenplay of the Year Award for Being There. - International House Harry Edmonds Life Achievement Award.
- Received Ph.D.Ph.D.A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
Honoris Causa in Hebrew Letters from Spertus College of Judaica. - 1988—Received Ph.D. Honoris Causa in Humane Letters from Albion CollegeAlbion CollegeAlbion College is a private liberal arts college located in Albion, Michigan. Related to the United Methodist Church, it was founded in 1835 and was the first private college in Michigan to have a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. It has a student population of about 1500.The school's sports teams are...
, Michigan. - 1989—Received Ph.D. Honoris Causa in Humane Letters from State University of New York at PotsdamState University of New York at PotsdamThe State University of New York at Potsdam, also known as SUNY Potsdam, or, colloquially, Potsdam, is a public university located in the Village of Potsdam in St. Lawrence County, New York. Founded in 1816, it is among the 50 oldest colleges in the United States...
.
Books
- Eliot Weinberger Genuine Fakes in his collection Karmic Traces; New Directions, 2000, ISBN 0811214567; ISBN 978-0811214568.
- Sepp L. Tiefenthaler, Jerzy Kosinski: Eine Einfuhrung in Sein Werk, 1980, ISBN 3416015568
- Norman Lavers, Jerzy Kosinski, 1982, ISBN 0805773525
- Byron L. Sherwin, Jerzy Kosinski: Literary Alarm Clock, 1982, ISBN 0941542009
- Barbara Ozieblo Rajkowska, Protagonista De Jerzy Kosinski: Personaje unico, 1986, ISBN 847496122X
- Paul R. Lilly, Jr., Words in Search of Victims: The Achievement of Jerzy Kosinski, Kent, Ohio, Kent State University Press, 1988, ISBN 0873383664
- Welch D. Everman, Jerzy Kosinski: the Literature of Violation, Borgo Press, 1991, ISBN 0893702765.
- Tom Teicholz, ed. Conversations with Jerzy Kosinski, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993, ISBN 0878056254
- Joanna Siedlecka, Czarny ptasior (The Black Bird), CIS, 1994, ISBN 8385458042.
- James Park Sloan, Jerzy Kosinski: a Biography, Diane Pub. Co., 1996, ISBN 0788153250.
- Agnieszka Salska, Marek Jedlinski, Jerzy Kosinski : Man and Work at the Crossroads of Cultures, 1997, ISBN 8371710879
- Barbara Tepa Lupack, ed. Critical Essays on Jerzy Kosinski, New York: G.K. Hall, 1998, ISBN 0783800738
Articles
- Oleg Ivsky, Review of The Painted Bird in Library JournalLibrary JournalLibrary Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
, Vol. 90, October 1, 1965, p. 4109 - Irving HoweIrving HoweIrving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
, Review of The Painted Bird in Harper's MagazineHarper's MagazineHarper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, October 1965 - Andrew Feld, Review in Book Week, October 17, 1965, p. 2
- Anne Halley, Review of The Painted Bird in NationNationA nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
, Vol. 201, November 29, 1965, p. 424 - D.A.N. Jones, Review of Steps in The New York Review of Books, Volume 12, Number 4, February 27, 1969
- Irving HoweIrving HoweIrving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
, Review of Being There in Harper's Magazine, July 1971, p. 89. - David H. Richter, The Three Denouements of Jerzy Kosinski's "The Painted Bird", Contemporary Literature, Vol. 15, No. 3, Summer 1974, pp. 370–85
- Gail SheehyGail SheehyGail Sheehy is an American writer and lecturer, most notable for her books on life and the life cycle. She is also a contributor to Vanity Fair magazine....
, "The Psychological Novelist as Portable Man", Psychology TodayPsychology TodayPsychology Today is a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States. It is a psychology-based magazine about relationships, health, and related topics written for a mass audience of non-psychologists. Psychology Today was founded in 1967 and features articles on such topics as love,...
, December 11, 1977, pp. 126–30 - Margaret Kupcinskas Keshawarz, "Simas Kidirka: A Literary Symbol of Democratic Individualism in Jerzy Kosinski's Cockpit", Lituanus (Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences), Vol. 25, No.4, Winter 1979
- Roger Copeland, "An Interview with Jerzy Kosinski", New York Art Journal, Vol. 21, pp. 10–12, 1980
- Robert E. Ziegler, "Identity and Anonymity in the Novels of Jerzy Kosinski", Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol. 35, No. 2, 1981, pp. 99–109
- Barbara Gelb, "Being Jerzy Kosinski", New York Times Magazine, February 21, 1982, pp. 42–46
- Stephen SchiffStephen SchiffStephen Schiff is an American screenwriter and journalist. He grew up in Littleton, Colorado and began his writing career at The Boston Phoenix, where he became the chief film critic and film editor , and hired and trained such critics as Owen Gleiberman and David Edelstein.In 1983, he was a...
, "The Kosinski Conundrum", Vanity FairVanity Fair (magazine)Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, June 1988, pp 114–19 - Thomas S. Gladsky, "Jerzy Kosinski's East European Self", Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, Winter 1988, pp. 121–32
- Michael Schumacher, "Jerzy Kosinski", Writer's Yearbook, 1990, Vol. 60, pp. 82–87.
- John Corry, "The Most Considerate of Men", American Spectator, Vol. 24, No. 7, July 1991, pp. 17–18
- Phillip Routh, "The Rise and Fall of Jerzy Kosinski", Arts & Opinion, Vol. 6, No. 6, 2007.
Biographical accounts
He is the subject of the off-Broadway play More Lies About JerzyMore Lies About Jerzy
More Lies About Jerzy is a play written by Davey Holmes, inspired by the last days of the Polish-American novelist, Jerzy Kosiński.It was first produced Off-Broadway in 2001, at the Vineyard Theatre in New York City. It premiered in London at the New End Theatre and in Los Angeles at the Hayworth...
(2001), written by Davey Holmes
Davey Holmes
Davey Holmes is an American screenwriter, producer and playwright.-Writing:Holmes has written for television shows including In Treatment for which he won a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay - New Series, Damages for which he received a nomination for Writers Guild of America...
and originally starring Jared Harris
Jared Harris
Jared Francis Harris is a British character actor, well known for playing the obnoxious Mac McGrath in the Adam Sandler film Mr. Deeds, and for his portrayal of Lane Pryce on the AMC series Mad Men.- Personal life :...
as Kosinski-inspired character "Jerzy Lesnewski". The most recent production being produced at the New End Theatre
New End Theatre
The New End Theatre, Hampstead, was a 80-seat fringe theatre venue in London, England, located in the London Borough of Camden which operated from 1974 until 2011. It was listed widely on the internet, including with the New York Times....
in London starring George Layton
George Layton
George Layton is an English actor, director, screenwriter and author. He was educated at Belle Vue Boys' Grammar School in Bradford and later studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts where he won the Emile Littler award. He went on to leading parts at Coventry and Nottingham and...
.
He also appears as one of the 'literary golems' (ghosts) in Thane Rosenbaum
Thane Rosenbaum
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, and law professor . He is the author of two novels, The Golems of Gotham and Second Hand Smoke , and a collection of short stories, Elijah Visible Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, and law professor (http://thanerosenbaum.com/). He is the author of...
's novel The Golems of Gotham
External links
- Katherina von Fraunhofer-Kosinski Collection of Jerzy Kosinski. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
- Designing The Painted Bird
- A guide to the Katherina von Fraunhofer-Kosinski collection of Jerzy Kosinski at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library