An obscure village in Poland, sheltered from ideas and industrialization, seemed a safe place to store one¹s most precious valuable: a 6-year-old boy. Or so it seemed to the parents who abandoned their only son to protect him from the Nazis in the beginning of Jerzy Kosinski¹s provocative 1965 novel The Painted Bird. After his guardian Marta dies and her decaying corpse and hut are accidentally engulfed in flames, the innocent young dark-haired, dark-eyed outcast is obliged to trek from village to village in search of food, shelter, ....