Kosinski, Jerzy Nikodem

Jerzy Kosinski was born on June 14, 1933 in Lódz, Poland as a Jew.  During WWII, when he was only six years old, Kosinski was separated from his parents and was left to fend for himself while wandering through Poland and Russia in an attempt to escape from the Nazis.  In 1942, Kosinski became mute from a traumatic mishap and recovered in 1948 after shock from a skiing accident.  His parents located him in 1945 in a Lódz orphanage.  From 1950 to 1955, he studied at the University of Lódz, receiving two M.A. degrees in history and political science; and from 1955 to 1957 he was professor of sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.  In 1957, Konsinski immigrated to the United States and settled in New York, where he later met and married Mary Hayward Weir, who died of a brain tumor in 1968.  The man taught himself English, and published two nonfiction works, The Future Is Ours, Comrade: Conversations with the Russians (1960) and No Third Path (1962), under the pen name Joseph Novak.  Kosinski "then took the literary world by storm" with The Painted Bird (1965), a graphic, fictionalized retelling of his own horrific experiences as a Jewish child in World War II.  This was followed by Steps (1968), which won the National Book Award, and Being There (1971) which became an Oscar-winning film in 1979.  Kosinski had less success with his later novels, The Devil Tree (1973; revised 1981), Cockpit (1975), Blind Date (1977), Passion Play (1979), Pinball (1982), The Hermit of 69th Street (1988), and Passing By (1992).  Nevertheless, he won many awards and was fellow of many great institutions in his life.  In later years, Kosinski was an active member of several Polish-Jewish foundations and was president (1973-75) of the American branch of the international writers organization PEN.  Due to his suffering from a deteriorating heart condition, Kosinski committed suicide by asphyxiation and died on May 3, 1991, in New York, N.Y. at the age of 57.