In had expectations of this book – although I was not a child during the war, I was born 10 months after it and suffered abject poverty, homelessness and most of all from my father’s post-traumatic stress from his horrific war experiences, as well as my refugee mother and a traumatised sister. Whoever gave either the author or the publisher the idea to call this a semi-autobiographical account, did no one a favour. I am in the process of writing such a book but would not plunder other people’s life events and call them my own. Here, the author, as far as I found, was not abandoned by his parents and left to suffer untold cruelty from a litany of deranged Polish villagers. The one true thing is that he lived indeed in Poland under the Nazi regime which must have been terrible. He must have read, seen or heard of the atrocities committed in his country at the time. The endless string of abuse he is said to have been subjected to become less and less credible after the middle of the book. Just because such things did indeed happen should not mean an author can attribute all of them to himself and call it semi-autobiographical, which for a book, should mean that names and places are changed and some events dramatized.

Read this book as total fiction. The relentless piling on of torture and cruelty begins to look as if Kosinsky derived some pleasure in listing the worst abuse of a little boy. Is this the work of a truly troubled and sadistic man? Very disappointing. 18/01/2025