The Painted Bird

Jerzy Kosiński's 1965 novel follows a dark-haired, olive-skinned boy who, at the start of the Second World War, is sent by his parents from the largest city of an unnamed Eastern European country to hide in the countryside. Cut off from them in the chaos of war, he wanders alone from village to village, accused of being a Jew or a Gypsy, rarely sheltered and sometimes hounded by peasants capable of extreme cruelty. The title comes from a bird catcher who paints a captured bird and frees it, only for its own flock to attack it. Kosinski first presented the story as autobiographical; a 1993 exposé showed its events to be fictional. A film version followed in 2019.

Jordan B. Peterson included it on his published book list.