Jerzy Nikodem Kosi?ski born Józef Lewinkopf was a PolishAmerican novelist and twotime President of the American Chapter of PEN who wrote primarily in English For several decades Kosinski was famous as a wit a great raconteur and a media celebrity His first three novels were big hits However in June 22 1982 Jerzy Kosinskis Tainted Words an article by Geoffrey Stokes and Eliot FremontSmith in The Village Voice accused Jerzy Kosinski of plagiarism and dishonesty The Painted Bird was widely considered to be autobiographical the Voice showed that this shocking tale about a brutalized childhood during the Jewish Holocaust was not after all about Jerzy who actually lived rather comfortably during the war years Being There which was adapted as a successful film was shown to have been plagiarized from an earlier Polish novel Jerzy Kosinski appeared in two feature films a few documentaries and a large number of talk shows His parents Moses Mojzesz and Elzbieta Liniecka Lewinkopf were well off resourceful and culturedthough Elzbieta was an amateur musician not a concert pianist as her son maintained and Moses was a manager skilled in languages but not a professor of linguistics The Lewinkopfs secularized Jews recognized the Nazi threat to their native Poland and in late 1939 they acquired papers changing their last name to Kosinski and the fathers first name to Mieczyslaw Kosinski was their only biological child
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