<div>A quirky, brilliant novel starring Chauncey Gardiner, an enigmatic man who rises from nowhere to become a media phenomenon&mdash;&ldquo;a fabulous creature of our age&rdquo; (Newsweek). One of the most beloved novels by the New York Times&ndash;bestselling and National Book Award&ndash;winning author of The Painted Bird and Pinball, Being There is the story of a mysterious man who finds himself at the center of Wall Street and Washington power&mdash;including his role as a policy adviser to the president&mdash;despite the fact that no one is quite sure where he comes from, or what he is actually talking about. Nevertheless, Chauncey &ldquo;Chance&rdquo; Gardiner is celebrated by the media, and hailed as a visionary, in this satirical masterpiece that became an award-winning film starring Peter Sellers. As wise and timely as ever, Being There is &ldquo;a tantalizing knuckleball of a book delivered with perfectly timed satirical hops and metaphysical flutters&rdquo; (Time).</div>

Being There

<div>This National Book Award&ndash;winning novel of power, libido, and morality is &ldquo;a powerful and profoundly disturbing book&rdquo; (The New York Times). First published in 1968, Jerzy Kosinski&rsquo;s classic vision of moral and sexual estrangement captured the deviant undercurrents of the era&rsquo;s politics and culture. In this haunting novel, distinctions are eroded between oppressor and oppressed, perpetrator and victim, narcissism and anonymity. Kosinski portrays men and women both aroused and desensitized by an environment that disdains the individual and seeks control over the imagination. &ldquo;C&eacute;line and Kafka stand behind this accomplished art&rdquo; from the celebrated author of The Painted Bird and Being There (The New York Times Book Review). &ldquo;A collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that&rsquo;s like nothing else anywhere ever.&rdquo; &mdash;David Foster Wallace &ldquo;Kosinski&rsquo;s prose is perfect to his purpose, efficient, detached, lucid as a gem, wholly in command.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times &ldquo;By some miracle of training, which recalls the linguistic bravado of Conrad and Nabokov, he is already a master of pungent and disciplined English prose. Simply as a stylist, Kosinski has few equals among American novelists born to the language. And I have also become convinced, after reading Steps, that he is one of the most gifted new figures to appear in our literature for some years.&rdquo; &mdash;Irving Howe, Harper&rsquo;s &ldquo;A beautifully written book. It is precise, scrupulous, and poetic. I can think of few writers who are able to so persuasively describe an event, set a scene, communicate an emotion.&rdquo; &mdash;Geoffrey Wolff, New Leader</div>

Steps

<div>The classic novel of a boy&rsquo;s struggle for survival in WWII Poland, from the National Book Award&ndash;winning author of Steps and Being There. &ldquo;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&rdquo; (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. &ldquo;One of the best . . . Written with deep sincerity and sensitivity.&rdquo; &mdash;Elie Wiesel, The New York Times Book Review &ldquo;Of all the remarkable fiction that emerged from World Wat II, nothing stands higher than Jerzy Kosinski&rsquo;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.&rdquo; &mdash;Jonathan Yardley, The Miami Herald &ldquo;Extraordinary . . . Literally staggering . . . One of the most powerful books I have ever read.&rdquo; &mdash;Richard Kluger, Harper&rsquo;s Magazine &ldquo;One of our most significant writers.&rdquo; &mdash;Newsweek</div>

The Painted Bird

<div>Kosinski&rsquo;s classic, acclaimed as &ldquo;an impressive novel . . . should confirm [his] position as one of our most significant writers&rdquo; (Newsweek). A searing novel from a writer of international stature, The Devil Tree is a tale that combines the existential emptiness of Camus&rsquo;s The Stranger with the universe of international playboys, violence, and murder of Patricia Highsmith&rsquo;s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Jonathan Whalen&rsquo;s life has been determined from the start by the immense fortune of his father, a steel tycoon. Whalen&rsquo;s childlike delight in power and status mask a greater need, a desire to feel life intensely, through drugs, violence, sex, and attempts at meaningful connection with other people&mdash;whether lovers or the memory of his dead parents. But the physical is all that feels real to him, and as he embarks on a journey to Africa with his godparents, Whalen&rsquo;s embrace of amoral thrill accelerates toward ultimate fulfillment. &ldquo;Savage . . . [Whalen is] a foolproof, timeless American character.&rdquo; &mdash;Cosmopolitan</div>

The Devil Tree

<div>From the twisted mind of Jerzy Kosinski, a novel of kink and consequences set in the turbulent world of 1970s rock music excess. Jerzy Kosinski&rsquo;s bestselling novel Pinball, which he wrote for George Harrison, is a rock &lsquo;n&rsquo; roll mystery centered on a superstar named Goddard who has, despite his success, managed to keep his identity a secret, even from his closest friends. But a beautiful young woman, obsessed with finding Goddard, stalks him relentlessly, driven by a secret goal that justifies all means. Ricocheting with humor and bursting with erotic intensity, Pinball is a game as intricate, unpredictable, suspenseful, and complex as life. &ldquo;Pinball is classic Kosinski.&rdquo; &mdash;Chicago Tribune &ldquo;Kosinski has created a suspenseful, readable, and unsentimental tale that showcases his love for and knowledge of music and examines the nature of fame and success and the frightening alienation and violence it often spawns.&rdquo; &mdash;Library Journal</div>

Pinball

<div>From the acclaimed author of Being There and The Painted Bird, this &ldquo;dazzling succession of . . . erotic anecdotes . . . brilliantly def[ies] the limitations of its form&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). An agent known only as Tarden is a former operative of the mysterious security agency &ldquo;the Service.&rdquo; He has erased himself from all dossiers and transcripts. Now a fugitive, he moves across the landscape free of identity, in search of adventure and intrigue. But Tarden is a man of many disguises, and he is alternately avenger and savior, judge and trickster, as he enters the lives of others, forcing them into the arena of his judgment. In Cockpit, Kosinski is at his most startling and powerful, stripping away pretension and illusions of security to reveal the source of real strength within. &ldquo;Jerzy Kosinki&rsquo;s work glistens with social observation and psychological apprehension. Not since Conrad has an Eastern European found so profound a voice in the English language.&rdquo; &mdash;Time &ldquo;A vicious peepshow-parable about a world we reluctantly recognize now and then.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews</div>

Cockpit

<div>A spectacular and erotically charged psychological novel from the acclaimed author of Being There and The Painted Bird. George Levanter is an idea man, a small investor, an international playboy, and a ruthless dealmaker whose life is delivered in a series of scorching encounters, each more incredible than the last. From Moscow to Paris, from a Manhattan skyscraper to a California mass murder, Blind Date is a dizzying vision of life among the beautiful people and the thrill-seekers that shows Jerzy Kosinski at the height of his power. &ldquo;Kosinki&rsquo;s vitality and inventiveness are as irresistible as ever.&rdquo; &mdash;Time</div>

Blind Date

<div>&ldquo;[This] new collection of Jerzy Kosinski&rsquo;s interviews and speeches reveals an Everyman who worked on his own terms . . . A most welcome body of texts that elucidates a rather mysterious persona.&rdquo; &mdash;Tablet Oral Pleasure: Kosinski as Storyteller is a collection of interviews, lectures, and transcriptions of media appearances from the legendary literary figure, Jerzy Kosinski. Compiled by his late widow, Kiki, most of the pieces here are published for the first time. These texts bring sharper focus to the themes in his works, making this strikingly erratic individual more accessible. They provide an uncensored portrait of the writer plagued by scandal, whose authenticity was challenged by fierce accusations of plagiarism regarding his seminal novel, The Painted Bird&mdash;suspicion that shadowed his career. Oral Pleasure reveals Kosinski as a truly genuine, gifted man of letters. The material covers different aspects of Kosinski&rsquo;s eventful life, from his thoughts on Poland and the Holocaust to his experiences with acting and television. He expounds on the difficulties of writing under a totalitarian government and the importance of freedom of speech. He discusses the fine line between fiction and autobiography, the prominent role sex played in his writing and life, the philosophical importance of violence in his novels, and his controversial statements on Jewish identity. This collection offers new insight into Kosinski&rsquo;s renowned work, portraying a brilliant storyteller behind the public figure. &ldquo;Containing more than 60 documents from Kosinski&rsquo;s career, the book flows like a conversation . . . thanks to the strength of Kosinski&rsquo;s voice, [it is] coherent and recognizably whole. . . . Even without prior knowledge of his work, Kosinski rewards those willing to engage with his stories.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

Oral Pleasure

<div>A collection of writings offers a revealing and provocative self-portrait of an author whose life was shrouded in enigma. Jerzy Kosinski was one of the most important and original writers of his time. Passing By serves as his legacy. This collection of essays by the late author features pieces about polo and skiing, levitation, the streets of New York, present-day Poland, the Cannes film festival, celebrities, and more. The man who emerges here has a passion for sport, a quirky sense of fun, an idiosyncratic range of acquaintances stretching from Pope John Paul II to Warren Beatty, and an abiding love of secrets, conundrums, and fantasies. But first and foremost, as he demonstrates in major essays on his novels The Painted Bird and Steps, Kosinski is a powerful, incomparable literary artist. &ldquo;Kosinski&rsquo;s vibrant, sexy, questioning voice is fully present.&rdquo; &mdash;The Boston Globe</div>

Jerzy Kosinski

Books By Jerzy Kosinski (9 Books)