Polish Stuff for E
Discover essential Polish literature with this curated list, featuring Władysław Szpilman's The Pianist, Jerzy Kosiński's The Painted Bird, and Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen—powerful books on history, survival, and the human spirit.
Book
The Painted Bird
by Jerzy Kosinski
A young boy, abandoned by his parents during World War II, wanders alone from one village to another in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.
Book
The Pianist
by Wladyslaw Szpilman
Named one of the Best Books of 1999 by the Los Angeles Times, The Pianist is now a major motion picture directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody (Son of Sam). The Pianist won the Cannes Film Festival’s most prestigious prize—the Palme d’Or. On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside—so loudly that he couldn’t hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air. Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.
