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Jerzy Kosinski

The Painted Bird

The classic novel of a boy’s struggle for survival in WWII Poland, from the National Book Award–winning author of Steps and Being There.
“In 1939, a six-year-old boy is sent by his anti-Nazi parents to a remote village in Poland where they believe he will be safe. Things happen, however, and the boy is left to roam the Polish countryside. . . . To the blond, blue-eyed peasants in this part of the country, the swarthy, dark-eyed boy who speaks the dialect of the educated class is either Jew, gypsy, vampire, or devil. They fear him and they fear what the Germans will do to them if he is found among them. So he must keep moving. In doing so, over a period of years, he observes every conceivable variation on the theme of horror” (Kirkus Reviews).
Originally published in 1965, The Painted Bird established Jerzy Kosinski as a major literary figure. With sparse prose and vivid imagery, it is a story of mythic proportion and timeless human relevance.
“One of the best . . . Written with deep sincerity and sensitivity.” —Elie Wiesel, The New York Times Book Review
“Of all the remarkable fiction that emerged from World Wat II, nothing stands higher than Jerzy Kosinski’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. The Painted Bird enriches our literature and our lives.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Miami Herald
“Extraordinary . . . Literally staggering . . . One of the most powerful books I have ever read.” —Richard Kluger, Harper’s Magazine
“One of our most significant writers.” —Newsweek
287 printed pages
Original publication
2007
Publication year
2007
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Quotes

  • bblbrxhas quoted4 years ago
    Even the teachers ignored my refusal to learn reading and writing in my mother-tongue. I wrote in chalk on the blackboard that my language was Russian, the speech of a land where there was no exploitation of the one by the many and where teachers did not persecute their pupils.

    A large calendar hung over my bed. I crossed off every day with a red pencil. I did not know how many more days were left to the end of the war still being waged in Germany, but I was confident that the Red Army was doing its best to bring the end nearer.
  • bblbrxhas quoted4 years ago
    I clutched the red star attached to my left breast pocket. A gift from Gavrila, it had Lenin’s profile on it. I now believed that this star, leading millions of workers throughout the world to their goal, could also bring me good luck.
  • bblbrxhas quoted4 years ago
    All the tracks were being used by military transports, Red Cross carriages, and open cars loaded with army equipment. On the platforms crowds of Soviet soldiers and ex-prisoners in a variety of uniforms jostled along with limping invalids, shabby civilians, and blind people who tapped the flagstones with their canes. Here and there nurses directed emaciated people in striped clothes; the soldiers looked at them in sudden silence—those were the people saved from the furnaces who were returning to life from the concentration camps.

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