Other editions of book The Painted Bird

Originally published in 1965, The Painted Bird established Jerzy Kosinski as a major literary figure. Called by the Los Angeles Times “one of the most imposing novels of the decade,” it was eventually translated into more than thirty languages. A harrowing story that follows the wanderings of a boy abandoned by his parents during World War II, The Painted Bird is a dark masterpiece that examines the proximity of terror and savagery to innocence and love. It is the first, and the most famous, novel by one of the most important and original writers of this century.

Originally published in 1965, in hardcover, by Houghton Mifflin, this is the definitive, revised edition of the author's novel. Now regarded as a late-modern classic, it has been completely revised by the author, who has also added an introduction. Jerzy Kosinski was not at all happy with the first edition (1965), which was heavily cut and bowdlerized. This edition restores whole sections that did not appear in the previous one and also incorporates changes the author subsequently made. This is a graphically violent and deeply affecting novel of human brutality as seen through the eyes of a young orphan during the Holocaust. It is a powerful tale of a young Polish boy trapped during German occupation in World War II, and the brutalities that traumatize his childhood as he wanders alone from one village to another. This is a savage, unrelenting book, running the gamut from innocence to wanton barbarism, with whistle stops at everything in between. It is one of the most powerful and profoundly moving books written in the 20th century. One of the canonical titles of the century's literature, and Kosinski's finest, unsurpassable and magisterial achievement, this is the author's highly praised third novel, the first published under his own name. His first two were under the pen name of Joseph Novak, The Future is Ours Comrade&No Third Path.

A harrowing story that follows the wanderings of a boy abandoned by his parents during World War II, this classic novel, originally published in 1965, is a dark masterpiece that examines the proximity of terror and savagery to innocence and love. It is the first, and the most famous, novel by one of the most important and original writers of this century.

Winner of the National Book Award The Painted Bird is one of the most shocking indictments of Nazi madness and terrors of the Holocaust during World War II. It is a story about the proximity of terror and savagery to innocence and love. It is a vivid and graphic portrayal of the hellish Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe as seen through the eyes of a boy struggling for survival, an alien child lost in a world gone mad.

Originally published in 1965, The Painted Bird established Jerzy Kosinski as a major literary figure. Kosinski's story follows a dark-haired, olive-skinned boy, abandoned by his parents during World War II, as he wanders alone from one village to another, sometimes hounded and tortured, only rarely sheltered and cared for. Through the juxtaposition of adolescence and the most brutal of adult experiences, Kosinski sums up a Bosch-like world of harrowing excess where senseless violence and untempered hatred are the norm. Through sparse prose and vivid imagery, Kosinski's novel is a story of mythic proportion, even more relevant to today's society than it was upon its original publication.