Jerzy Kosinski's largest fame in his short life of 58 years, was his
1970 story Being There which was humorously made into a
feature movie starring Peter Sellers of the same name.
Jerzy Kosinski, who ultimately committed suicide in New York in 1991, began his writing career by publishing two non-fiction works under the
pseudonym Joseph Novak.
Kosinski followed these works by switching to publishing fiction under his own name. The sequential fiction novels
The Painted Bird in 1965 and
Steps in 1968 told the story of an unnamed boy wondering around Europe during World War II who ultimately grows up incapable of dealing with social norms. The story as a man,
Steps earned him the
Nation Book Award for Fiction in 1968.
Although,
Kosinski's full bibliography became decreasingly popular amongst the mainstrema, his four novels over the course of the 1970s:
- The Devil Tree - 1973
- Cockpit - 1975
- Blind Date - 1977
- Passion Play - 1979
drew wildly from Kosinski's own experiences where he ranged from anything from a cockfighting fan to an enthusiastic player of polo.
The end of Kosinski's life overshadowed his important role as author as it was filled with an acting part in Waren Beatty's film Reds and riddled with plagiarism claims by the Village Voice. Ultimately, it was the
Atlantic Monthly in 1997 who squashed the Voice claim as absurd. And finally, and more appropriately, it was Kosinski who put it perfectly by saying:
"The principle of art is to pause, not bypass."
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