Passing By

Jerzy Kosinski's suicide in 1991 shocked the literary world. A Polish emigre who had survived unspeakable horrors as a child during World War II, Kosinski was a flamboyant figure whose death only added to the aura of mystery that surrounded him. Passing By is Kosinski's legacy, a collection of writings, never before published in book form, that answers many questions about Kosinski and his work - a revealing and provocative self-portrait by an author whose life was shrouded in enigma. Kosinski prided himself on his ability to hide - physically - whenever he wanted. Certainly he managed to keep his own persona and even his life something of a mystery, but here he talks about himself, some of his obsessions, and his feelings about places from New York to Poland. The man who emerges has a passion for sport (polo and skiing), a quirky sense of fun ("Learning to Levitate"), strong opinions about various locales (the streets of New York, present-day Poland, the Cannes film festival), an idiosyncratic range of acquaintances (meetings with such diverse people as Pope John Paul II, Solzhenitsyn, Warren Beatty, Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jacques Monod), and an abiding love of secrets, conundrums, and fantasies. But first and foremost - as he demonstrates in "The Real Author of Jerzy Kosinski's Books," and in major essays on his novels The Painted Bird and Steps - Kosinski is a powerful literary artist, a man who will always be remembered for his electrifying works of fiction.