Re-reading The painted bird

Abstract

Jerzy Kosinski’s controversial fiction, The Painted Bird, has elicited an array of negative reviews. As a Holocaust novel, it has been criticized for not reflecting Kosinski’s own wartime experiences. As such, it has been called fraudulent and inappropriately violent, grotesque, and exaggerated. Such understandings of the book have given it a denigrated status in the canon of Holocaust literature. I will argue that these are ineffective and misguided readings of the novel by laying out the issues and themes of the novel, its author, and writing on the Holocaust. Then, I will apply an existing understanding of Holocaust fiction to the novel in order to produce a fresh reading. I hope this new look at The Painted Bird will highlight its rich, narrative style that creates layers of perspectives unreachable by most authors and situate its rightful place alongside other important works of the Holocaust.