The Painted Bird

The painted bird of the title refers to a garishly painted creature cruelly released to rejoin its flock. The flock, confused by its artificial coloring, rejects the bird and sends it plummeting to its death. The young protagonist who observed this incident uses it as a metaphor for his own life as he wanders, rejected and mistreated, from village to village in Poland during WWII. In the afterword, written by the author in 1976, Kosinski notes that the book itself became a kind of painted bird, banned in Poland, lambasted by critics for its focus on human brutality, and disputed as to its true authorship. Now 45 years after its publication, this audiobook soars above those controversies and deserves--actually, it demands--one's undivided attention. In a soft Polish accent narrator Fred Berman spins this tale with a storyteller's intimacy, uninterrupted by character voicings. (There's no dialogue.) The production poignantly and beautifully captures Kosinski's dark, melancholy landscape. R.W.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine