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The Phenomenological Self In The Works Of Jerzy Kosinski, Tracy Allen Houston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A scholar who wishes to examine the works of Jerzy Kosinski faces a problem not found in the study of many other authors: Kosinski's personal history, critical to many approaches to the study of literature, is filled with fictions, contradictions, and unverifiable events. For years Kosinski's first novel, The Painted Bird, was taken to be autobiographical. However, as interest in Kosinski's work grew, inconsistencies and obvious falsehoods contradicted this accepted autobiographical reading. The Painted Bird describes the wanderings of a young boy in Eastern Europe during WWII, yet Kosinski was not separated fiom his parents as had been previously believed. …