1939-1945
Assumed dead and forced to wander throughout the villages of Eastern
Poland in flight from the Nazis.
1942
Suffers speech loss in traumatic accident.
1945
Located by parents in Lodz orphanage.
1948
Hospitalized after skiing accident which shocks him into recovery of
his speech.
1950-1956
Ski instructor in Zakopane, Poland. Social instructor summers in Miedzyzdroje,
Baltic Ocean.
1953
M.A. in Political Science, University of Lodz
1955
M.A. in History, University of Lodz
1955-1957
Associate Professor and Ph.D. candidate at Institute of Sociology and
Cultural History, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw. Research Assistant
at Polish Academy of Arts and Science as Lomonosov, University of Russia.
Publishes on revolutionary movements of the Nineteenth Century. Exhibits
prize winning photographs in major international salons of photography.
1957
Escapes to United States in December.
1958
Publishes Socjalgia Amerykanska: Wybor Prac.
1958-1960
Awarded ford Foundation Fellowship to do doctoral work at Colombia
University. Researches the sociology of literary forms and language.
1960
Publishes non-fiction work, The Future is Ours, Comrade: Conversations
with the Russians under pseudonym Joseph Novak. Meets Mary Hayward
Weir in New York.
1962
Publishes No Third Path under pseudonym Joseph Novak. Father
dies in Poland. Marries Mary Hayward Weir on January 11.
1965
Publishes The Painted Bird and "Notes on the Author of The
Painted Bird." Granted U.S. citizenship. Mary Weir's illness begins.
1966
Receives Best French Foreign Book Award for The Painted Bird.
Meets Katherina (Kiki) von Frauenhofer, a lifetime companion. (Marty's
Note: Kosinski will dedicate almost every book he writes to Katherina.
The Painted Bird is dedicated to Mary Hayward Weir. Steps
is dedicated to his father. Passing By, a collection of his essays,
is dedicated to his godchildren.)
1967
Guggenheim Fellow in Literature. Wesleyan University Center for Advanced
Study, Professor of English.
1967-1968
Princeton University.
1968
Publishes Steps and "The Art of the Self: Essay A Propos Steps."
Mary Weir dies of a brain tumor.
1968-1969
Awarded a fellowship for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University.
1969
Receives National Book Award for Steps. Delayed in his flight
to home of Sharon Tate on the night of August 7, the night of the Manson
murders. Scenes from Steps were performed on the television show
Critique.
1969-1970
Senior Fellow, Council of Humanities, Princeton University.
1970
John Golden Fellowship in playwriting 1970-72. Award in Literature,
National Institute of Arts and Letters and American Academy of Arts and
Letters. "The Writers Dilemma" Sound Seminar Audio Tape produced. Fellow
of Davenport College.
1970-73
Visiting Professor of English prose, School of Drama, Yale University.
Resident Fellow, Davenport College. Yale University.
1971
Mother dies in Poland. Produces "Jerzy Kosinski: Selected Readings
from The Painted Bird." Audio Cassette. Publishes Being There.
1972
"The Art of the Self: Essay A Propos Steps" reprinted in Exile.
"Jerzy Kosinski on Fiction" Audio Cassette produced.
1973
Publishes The Devil Tree.
1973-1975
President of the American Chapter of P.E.N. Re-elected 1974, serving
maximum two terms allowed.
1974
Brith Sholom Humanitarian Freedom Award.
1975
Publishes Cockpit. Resolution honoring Jerzy Kosinski for his
contribution as President of P.E.N.
1977
Publishes Blind Date. Writes screenplay for Being There.
Receives American Civil Liberties Award.
1979
Publishes Passion Play. Film version of Being There,
starring Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine released. Wins Writers Guild
of America Best Screenplay Award. (Marty's Note: Melvyn Douglas, who plays
Benjamin Rand in this film, wins his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar
for this role. Sellers is nominated for Best Actor but loses to Dustin
Hoffman [Kramer Vs. Kramer].)
1980
Polonia Media Perspectives Achievement Award.
1981
Publishes revised edition of The Devil Tree. Screenplay of Being
There wins British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Wins Best
Screenplay of the Year Award. Acts in film Reds as Bolshevik Zinoviev.
1982
Publishes Pinball. Accused of plagiarism in the Village Voice
by Geoffery Stokes and Eliot Fremont-Smith in an article entitled "Tainted
Words." Defended by John Corry, Barbara Gelb, and Charles Kaiser.
1988
Publishes The Hermit of 69th Street: The Working Papers of Norbert
Koski and short story "Chantal." Endows Bruno Schulz Prize of $60,000
for a foreign writer "underrecognized" in the United States. Returns to
Poland for ten-day trip, his first since escaping to the West in 1957.
1989
Returns to Poland to national acclaim on the publication of The
Painted Bird, the first Polish edition of any of his works.
1991
Commits suicide on May 3, aged 57, due to discouragement over failing
health and inability to write.
Source: Cronin, Gloria L. Jerzy Kosinski: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.