Jerzy Kosiński

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Eric Koch: Jerzy Kosiński (1969)

Jerzy Nikodem Kosiński (born Józef Lewinkopf ; born June 14, 1933 in Łódź , Poland ; † May 3, 1991 in New York ) was an American writer of Polish- Jewish origin.

Life

Kosiński was the son of Mieczysław Lewinkopf and Elżbieta, nee Liniecka, born in 1933 in Łódź, Poland. After the German attack on Poland , he had to go into hiding in the country because of his Jewish descent. Thanks to a forged baptism certificate in the name of Jerzy Nikodem Kosiński, he survived the Second World War in a Catholic Polish family. He himself later claimed to have hidden from the Germans in various villages, but this turned out to be untrue.

From 1950 to 1956 he worked as a ski instructor in Zakopane in winter and as a supervisor in Międzyzdroje in the summer months . In between he studied politics in Łódź. He successfully completed this course in 1953; in 1955 he graduated with a degree in history. He then worked as a doctoral student at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw . After he had repeatedly come into conflict with the authorities due to his criticism of the political situation in Poland, he took the opportunity to emigrate to the USA in 1957 . There he made his way through various odd jobs. a. to continue his scientific career with great success with the support of the Ford Foundation. The focus of his research was on studies of totalitarian mass society and its social psychology.

In January 1962 he married the millionaire Mary Hayward Weir , the young widow of an American industrialist. In the same year his father died in Poland. In 1965 he received American citizenship. The following year he divorced his wife. She died two years later. Through his connection with Mary Weir, Kosiński came into close contact with circles of the American power elite from business and politics. From 1967 to 1968 he worked at Princeton University . His mother died in 1971. After the political change in 1989, he visited his native Poland on the occasion of the local appearance of The Painted Bird ( The Painted Bird ), his first published book in Poland.

Kosiński has worked twice as an actor: in the 1981 film drama Reds by and with Warren Beatty and in the 1989 comedy Hotline zum Himmel with Sandra Bullock . For the 1979 comedy Welcome Mr. Chance , he wrote the screenplay based on his own novel, for which he received the Writers Guild of America Award .

On May 3, 1991 Jerzy Kosiński committed suicide . Speculations that soon arose that he died while engaging in extreme sexual practices were invalidated by the existence of a suicide note.

plant

At the beginning of his activity as a writer he worked temporarily under the pseudonym Joseph Novak . Probably his most important work is the novel The Painted Bird . Originally he claimed these were his personal experiences during World War II . This later turned out to be an untruth. The work is about a boy who wanders through Poland during the war and hides. The novel was viewed by some critics as hostile to Poland. Kosiński always denied this, pointing out that the boy's nationality was deliberately not mentioned.

Critics, including The Village Voice , accused Kosiński that a large part of his works did not come from his pen. They pointed to the great style differences between his works and claimed that his works were plagiarisms of works by unknown Polish authors. In turn, his defenders pointed out that he had varied his style over time, which was not unusual.

Works

  • The Future is Ours, Comrade , 1960
  • No Third Path , 1962
  • The Painted Bird , novel, 1965
    • German edition: The painted bird. Translated from the American by Herbert Roch. Arche, Zurich 1965 a. 2011, ISBN 978-3-7160-2673-1 .
  • Steps , 1968, German From the Fires , 1970
  • Being There , 1971, Welcome Mr. Chance , 1978
  • The Devil Tree , 1973, dt. The Devil Tree , 1975
  • Cockpit , 1975
  • Blind Date , 1977
  • Passion Play , 1979
  • Pinball , 1982
  • The Hermit of 69th Street , 1988
  • Passing By , 1992

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Alessandra Stanley: Jerzy Kosiński, The Writer, 57, Is Found Dead . In: "New York Times" May 4, 1991.
  2. ↑ Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography - Reviewed by DG Myers , 1996

literature

Web links

Commons : Jerzy Kosinski  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kosiński, Jerzy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kosiński, Jerzy Nikodem (full name); Novak, Joseph (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer of Polish descent
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Łódź
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1991
Place of death New York City